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North Keypad button problem
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Hi AP,
The keypad (3388GTO) of my Mach1 dating a little (2011) I took advantage of the command of my Mach2 to take a battery to replace the original one. Everything went well and upon reignition I found all my parameters. However, I have noticed for some time that there was a problem with the N key, on which it was necessary for it to activate the mount.Yesterday evening, after a few weeks without use (The mach2 occupied me well), I, during the evening "On The Moon Again", noticed that the N key on the keypad no longer worked. Thanks to SkyFi3 that I had with me and skysafari I ensured the rest of the evening, but what to do to repair this problem on the N key? The other keys work perfectly well.I understand that the new GTOCP5 / CP4 keypad, which I expect, will not be backward compatible with GTOCP3. Dominique
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Joe Zeglinski
Hi Dominique,
Don’t worry. No need to send your Keypad to AP for
repair. Fixing buttons on ANY “rubber membrane” keypad (TV Remote,
cordless Phone, AP Keypad, etc.), is easy, if you are careful. I have done it
several times on various devices. After pressing “certain buttons” on any keypad
for many years, the “mould release oil”, soaked into the rubber itself,
eventually “leaches out”, and you get its left-over oil on the contact(s)
underneath, electrically insulating the carbon (?) under-side of that button(s),
and the corresponding circuit board copper contact pad(s). Over many years, you
probably pressed the Keypad NORTH slew button more often than any of the
others.
All you need to do is remove the keypad membrane
sheet and wash it, (and the circuit board surface), with “dish
soap”.
Please read my post on June 14, 2020:
“Re: [ap-gto] Old Keypad Repair/Refurbishing”
Should take less than an hour. It is also good a preventative procedure,
since the other, less often pressed keys, are probably a bit oily as well and
will eventually cause the same problem.
The trickiest part of repairing TV , phone, car-keys
Fob, and other Keypads, is finding & removing case screws (in the battery
compartment) then splitting the case seam apart. Some can be more difficult than
others, but the AP Keypad is easy and meant to be opened for battery changes. I
found using a small stiff penknife blade, for prying & pressing along the
case seam, was handy for separating the case halves. Other keypad devices
are just snapped together at only a few places, but the CP3/CP4 comes
apart after its screws (and their critical nylon washers), are removed.
Good luck.
Joe Z.
From: Dominique Durand via groups.io
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2020 1:37 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: [ap-gto] North Keypad button problem [Edited Message Follows] Hi AP,The keypad (3388GTO) of my Mach1 dating a little (2011) I took advantage of the command of my Mach2 to take a battery to replace the original one. Everything went well and upon reignition I found all my parameters. However, I have noticed for some time that there was a problem with the N key, on which it was necessary for it to activate the mount.Yesterday evening, after a few weeks without use (The mach2 occupied me well), I, during the evening "On The Moon Again", noticed that the N key on the keypad no longer worked. Thanks to SkyFi3 that I had with me and skysafari I ensured the rest of the evening, but what to do to repair this problem on the N key? The other keys work perfectly well.I understand that the new GTOCP5 / CP4 keypad, which I expect, will not be backward compatible with GTOCP3. Dominique
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Hi Joe,
Thank you for the link to the related topic, actually the problem could be of this nature, since since 2011 I used this keypad in a common way and it has, depending on the period, lived between -5 and + 30 °. The other keys may already be partially affected.So I just replaced the battery but looking at how to access the buttons, I saw, with the fiber optic beam present, that it would be tricky. So I didn't go any further and I don't really see how to access the membrane part without removing everything from the keypad and therefore taking some significant risks.I await the opinion of Rolando on the question and I discussed with my dealer the return of the keypad. My concern is more about the repair time with the transport which is added, I have astronomy animations this summer and the mach1 with its keypad is useful to me.But I'm also waiting for a keypad for my mach2, the 2 could arrive together. Best regards Dominique
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Joe Zeglinski
AP-Support: As an after thought about Keypad’s
buttons eventually becoming too oily and losing their circuit board pad
contact, may I suggest that AP Tech Support, with their usual
excellent customer courtesy, not only change the battery or other servicing, but
as a preventative measure also wash off any (possibly) underlying key membrane
& circuit pad oil, as I described.
Since the old Keypad battery, sent in for
changing, would already be 7 or more years old, then the “dead buttons”
problem would surely soon follow. This way, the keypad and new battery would
both be good for another decade, without a customer’s frustration of losing
valuable “sky-time”. Joe Z.
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Dominique Durand
Hi,
It may only be part postponed,but if they were oily structures stuck on contacts and preventing the activation of the button, one could think that a dose of heat could thin the thing. So with the screen and the buttons down, with a hairdryer, I moderately heated the "N" button, for 1 to 2 ', 2 to 3 times, and then I tried again and on the 2nd press on the N button the Dec axis started to move. After several tests the button remained operational.I will therefore follow its functioning on my next outings and I will inform you of the situation. Dominique
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Joe Zeglinski
Dominique,
Don’t want to scare anybody about this problem –
but I would be VERY careful – with using a hair dryer on your expensive AP
Keypad.
If it helps momentarily by cooking the oil, perhaps bubbling it away from
the carbon contact, then it might also do the same for the rubber button tops.
Those are very thin skinned rubber tops, which you don’t want to become
stretched, floppy, or torn.
Whenever I took a “marginally working” keypad membrane
out of some misbehaving “remote controller case”, the circuit board pads were
“quite slimy”, almost dripping, when I got it on my fingers.
For example, zoom in very tightly on my attached
picture of my old Panasonic Cordless phone circuit board cleaning, when one of
the keypad digits wouldn’t make a good contact for me to dial out. You can see
fairly large, round drops of oil at the far left edge of the circuit board,
especially next to the FLASH key pad, and “puddled islands of oil”,
where pressing the other buttons, squirted away some oil between the
circuit pads in other places. Since we hold such devices “upright” during use, I
think the oil eventually accumulates more toward the bottom edge, as seen in my
picture – and this one wasn’t really bad yet, with just one button losing
connection.
The dark backside (buttons) of the membrane itself is a
bit harder to see how wet it was, but it was all a big mess. It is NOT an
“intended” button lubricant ! – I have seen circuit boards & keypads
bone dry, on newer devices I have taken apart to check.
I haven’t needed to wash the oil from my AP-900 &
1200 Keypads yet, since I rarely use them, so I can’t speak about any
difficulty of doing the same procedure there. But, this will give
you some idea “what really goes on, under any” of our common household
Remote devices. Most people aren’t aware of such things, and simply throw away
the device, and (hopefully) can still buy a new phone handset, TV Remote,
or a substitute etc.
You don’t want to do that for the AP Keypad, and nobody warns us about this
“common” problem.
Joe Z.
From: Dominique Durand via groups.io
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2020 11:51 AM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] North Keypad button problem Hi, It may only be part postponed,but if they were oily structures stuck on contacts and preventing the activation of the button, one could think that a dose of heat could thin the thing. So with the screen and the buttons down, with a hairdryer, I moderately heated the "N" button, for 1 to 2 ', 2 to 3 times, and then I tried again and on the 2nd press on the N button the Dec axis started to move. After several tests the button remained operational.I will therefore follow its functioning on my next outings and I will inform you of the situation. Dominique
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Joe,
I too had to clean a TV remote control with this problem. Thanks for the photo. There with the AP keypad I went there quiet. I'm not sure I have exceeded 95 °F (35 °C). It was not a thermal stripper and I think the problem may return. Dominique
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Roland Christen
I think you may want to not follow this advice and not heat your keypad. We are in contact with the manufacturer, and will advise shortly what their recommended fix is for the keypad.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
From: Dominique Durand via groups.io <dom33.durand@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Mon, Jun 29, 2020 1:47 pm Subject: Re: [ap-gto] North Keypad button problem [Edited Message Follows]
Joe,I too had to clean a TV remote control with this problem. Thanks for the photo. There with the AP keypad I went there quiet. I'm not sure I have exceeded 95 °F (35 °C). It was not a thermal stripper and I think the problem may return. Dominique
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Dominique Durand
On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 08:55 PM, uncarollo2 <chris1011@...> wrote:
I think you may want to not follow this advice and not heat your keypad. We are in contact with the manufacturer, and will advise shortly what their recommended fix is for the keypad.Thanks Rolando, I'm waiting for your advice as to when this will happen again.
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