Repair faulty buttons of your remote control in 15 minutes!

One of the most commonly faced problems in remote controls is the "dead" button syndrome. Do you hate that you'll have to dump the remote simply because only one or two buttons are not functioning? Well, fret no more! The fact is that most remotes with this problem can be repaired more easily that you thought possible. And believe it or not, all you need are some double-sided tape and a small piece of aluminum foil from your kitchen.

I've been using this method to successfully keep my favorite universal remote control "alive" for over 7 years now.
It should be a pretty straightforward affair for anyone to strip apart the vast majority of remotes out there using a screwdriver. But there are some remotes which are constructed using the "snap-on" method. These could prove difficult to pry open.


To help those of you who may not feel brave enough to take apart a remote control, here is a picture of the components typically found in a stripped-down remote:
As you can see, sandwiched between the front and rear covers are usually only 2 components; a rubber keypad and a circuit board. On some remotes (very few these days), there are additional individual hard plastic buttons between the front cover and the rubber keypad. These buttons will drop out like plastic Lego bricks once you take the covers apart, which means you'll need to know where to put each one back to its correct location when assembling the remote. With such remotes, I'd recommend that you have a visual record of the button locations before taking it apart (either take a photo or refer to the user manual). So what do you do now that you've successfully taken the remote apart (did I hear that sigh of relief there?). Simple, you can either proceed to the next step below or, do something about the years of accumulated dirt and grim that you are probably seeing now! Just be sure not to get the circuit board in contact with any liquid. I recommend just using a damp cloth to wipe the circuit board. It should be safe to wash the other parts in mild detergent, so yes, go ahead and do all that scrubbing you clean freaks! After cleaning, make sure that everything is dry before you proceed.

Now comes the repair part. Ready? Just use the double-sided tape to paste a piece of aluminum foil over the back of the rubber keypad that corresponds to each faulty button. Here's a picture of what I mean:
It should be easy for anyone to cut and paste the foil to the keypad using the double-sided tape. As long as the end result looks like the picture on left. But one neat way is to paste the foil onto the tape first, then use a hole-puncher to punch out uniformly sized pieces of self-adhesive foil.

That's all you ask? Yes, once you are satisfied that you've pasted the foil over all the faulty buttons, you're ready to put things back together as they were. And then go back to enjoy using your refreshed & rejuvenated remote again!

P.S. In case you're wondering how the humble kitchen foil is able to revive the "dead" buttons, here's a quick explanation: Coated behind each key on the keypad is a layer of electrically conductive carbon material - the black portions. When a button is pressed, the key is moved down and its carbon touches the corresponding open-circuit patterns found on the circuit board, thereby causing that particular circuit to close and triggering the remote to fire a signal. When a button is used heavily, dirt & wear kicks in and can reduce the conductivity of the carbon layer on the keypad to the extend that it can no longer behave as a electrical conductor. Thus, by pasting an aluminum foil over the carbon area on the keypad, we are effectively replacing the old carbon layer with a highly conductive metal, and so the button works again. Many keypad devices (excluding miniature devices such as mobile phones & MP3 players) share the same construction principles as the typical remote control, so you should be able to apply this DIY repair technique to a wide variety of gadgets such cordless phones, calculators, keyboards, etc.