Saturday, March 3, 2012

Logitech Wave Missing Keystrokes & Teardown

My Logitech wireless keyboard started missing keystrokes. It's really irritating. I tried a few different things before I figured it out.
  •  It was recommended to not have it's receiver plugged into a hub, so I plugged it directly into a usb port, that didn't fix it.
  • I tried the "smash it in frustration" approach, which only succeeded in breaking one of the feet.
  • It was so bad I decided to tear it apart and either finish it off or fix it. I didn't find anything to fix.
  • I eventually discovered that it works great backwards, or if I hold my hands at a funny angle. it seems the PCB and antenna are under the wrist pad, and something is causing me to interfere with it.
  • I dropped the receiver behind my desk almost at foot level and the keyboard seems to work great now. The mouse is another story...
  • I'm contemplating running a new antenna around the perimeter, so part of it is not under my hands
Teardown
 It's all held together with philips screws, Thank you Logitech for not using some stupid tamper-resistant screws. Be careful, pulling the membrane off created quite a static charge, I hope I didn't do any ESD damage.
 The switch thingie is a 3 piece plastic thing with circuits and contacts on the top and bottom with a separator in the center with holes for each key
I wiped each piece down with rubbing alcohol.
 
Reassembly
 Put the zoom button and mute button on the lower part, all the other keys are snapped into the upper part.