pro1x My [Z] key fell off last week. Can I just super glue it back?

[JECE 24]

It's in the title, but a week ago my little cousin somehow managed to pop the [Z] key off the keyboard. From the look of it, the keys are just held on with a little bit of glue. Can I just super glue the key back on or is that approach unadvisable for some reason?

Edited September 16, 2022 by JECE
fixed typos

[suicidal_orange 100]

What is visible through the hole?  If it's a flexible membrane and you get glue in the wrong place the key wont work, if it's flat and hard you'll be fine (as long as you don't get any glue on the outside and glue it to the bit with the hole in...)

[JECE 24]

2 hours ago, suicidal_orange said:

What is visible through the hole?  If it's a flexible membrane and you get glue in the wrong place the key wont work, if it's flat and hard you'll be fine (as long as you don't get any glue on the outside and glue it to the bit with the hole in...)

I'm not sure if I understand your question, but pressing [Z] works fine without the [Z] key. It's just a little more recessed without the plastic key, and with an annoying backlight. What's below is flat, firm, soft and translucent.

[VaZso 1,997]

25 minutes ago, JECE said:

I'm not sure if I understand your question, but pressing [Z] works fine without the [Z] key. It's just a little more recessed without the plastic key, and with an annoying backlight. What's below is flat, firm, soft and translucent.

Basically keyboard mat should be one piece (all keys on one plate) which are glued (using doble-side tape) on top of button mebranes covered by a foil.

I would not glue it using a super glue as it will stick on top of the foil which covers the membrane so it will not remain in stock condition.

If you remove display assembly, keyboard mat can be removed by applying some heat using a heat gun and some mechanical help using a tool.
After removing mat, I would try to fix the missing key somehow - maybe using a sticker which has relatively strong adhesive (it should be elastic and that is also why super glue is not good for this purpose).
Also, this way you keep the option of replacing your keyboard mat later when F(x)tec will has replacement mats available.

[JECE 24]

54 minutes ago, VaZso said:

Basically keyboard mat should be one piece (all keys on one plate) which are glued (using doble-side tape) on top of button mebranes covered by a foil.

I would not glue it using a super glue as it will stick on top of the foil which covers the membrane so it will not remain in stock condition.

If you remove display assembly, keyboard mat can be removed by applying some heat using a heat gun and some mechanical help using a tool.
After removing mat, I would try to fix the missing key somehow - maybe using a sticker which has relatively strong adhesive (it should be elastic and that is also why super glue is not good for this purpose).
Also, this way you keep the option of replacing your keyboard mat later when F(x)tec will has replacement mats available.

There is no foil, and there is no double-sided tape. There is just a faint speck of what I assumed to be some type of glue that held the key to the rest of the keyboard. I just need to know what type of glue that speck was.

There also appears to be no need to disassemble the keyboard. Even if it were necessary and I had the technical capacity to do that, how could I line the key up perfectly? Right now the key fits perfectly.

Is there any hope that a representative from F(x)tec will step in to provide guidance?

[Hook 2,907]

4 minutes ago, JECE said:

There is no foil, and there is no double-sided tape. There is just a faint speck of what I assumed to be some type of glue that held the key to the rest of the keyboard. I just need to know what type of glue that speck was.

There also appears to be no need to disassemble the keyboard. Even if it were necessary and I had the technical capacity to do that, how could I line the key up perfectly? Right now the key fits perfectly.

Is there any hope that a representative from F(x)tec will step in to provide guidance?

We can try @Casey, but chances are, you would need to contact them.

[VaZso 1,997]

11 minutes ago, JECE said:

There is no foil, and there is no double-sided tape. There is just a faint speck of what I assumed to be some type of glue that held the key to the rest of the keyboard. I just need to know what type of glue that speck was.

There also appears to be no need to disassemble the keyboard. Even if it were necessary and I had the technical capacity to do that, how could I line the key up perfectly? Right now the key fits perfectly.

Is there any hope that a representative from F(x)tec will step in to provide guidance?

Look at these parts:

There is a white "foil" near the bottom-left corner.
That should be at the phone side and it should be intact.

Above it, there is the keyboard itself which you have a missing key as far as I understood well.
That (black) keyboard has a double-sided tape at back, so its bottom is sticky (you can remove it using some heat).

So I would try to fix the missing key in the black part and not gluing to the white part which should be kept intact.

Edit:
When I have disassembled my Pro1 the first time, I have also removed springs (it was not a good idea but I could put its assembly back) and keyboard mat (which was also not a perfect idea but I was able to re-align it perfectly).

Edited September 16, 2022 by VaZso

[EskeRahn 5,399]

If I understand the question correctly, it is just the small hard part on top of the rubber mat that has been peeled off the Z, and I'm sure it can be glued back on with full functionality.

Personally I would go for someting a little more plain than superglue, so it can be remove as first attempts.

But it is likely that a tiny drop of super glue placed where you can see it has been glued earlier will work.

[JECE 24]

46 minutes ago, VaZso said:

Look at these parts:

There is a white "foil" near the bottom-left corner.
That should be at the phone side and it should be intact.

Above it, there is the keyboard itself which you have a missing key as far as I understood well.
That (black) keyboard has a double-sided tape at back, so its bottom is sticky (you can remove it using some heat).

So I would try to fix the missing key in the black part and not gluing to the white part which should be kept intact.

Edit:
When I have disassembled my Pro1 the first time, I have also removed springs (it was not a good idea but I could put its assembly back) and keyboard mat (which was also not a perfect idea but I was able to re-align it perfectly).

That picture must be of the Pro¹, not the Pro¹ X. My keyboard layout is different. Maybe that's why we are having trouble understanding each other.

But EskeRahn seems to have it right. If you lifted the black keyboard in your picture, would the keys fall out? Or is there something squishy below the black keyboard, out of sight of the camera?

[VaZso 1,997]

1 minute ago, JECE said:

That picture must be of the Pro¹, not the Pro¹ X. My keyboard layout is different. Maybe that's why we are having trouble understanding each other.

Basically that part should be the same except the print of the keys (layout difference is only a difference of printing).

2 minutes ago, JECE said:

But EskeRahn seems to have it right. If you lifted the black keyboard in your picture, would the keys fall out? Or is there something squishy below the black keyboard, out of sight of the camera?

I didn't examined the keyboard precisely but no, keys don't fell out, black keyboard is generally one piece of material.
However, it may happen you have a key removed from the base of black keyboard material and it did not come out fully from it (leaving a hole in place).

So I saw a keyboard pad which had a sticky bottom and there was a white part at phone base where keyboard was glued to using that sticky bottom (it feels similarly to a double-sided adhesive tape which does not have a cellux holder)

[EskeRahn 5,399]

6 hours ago, VaZso said:

black keyboard is generally one piece of material.

Well one unit, but composed of an elastic mat (rubber, silicone, ...?), with hard keytops on top, and a plate with holes around the keys. And most likely some sort of glue hold these tops to the mat, and some adhesive (tape or glue?) fix the plate to the elastic mat

[VaZso 1,997]

3 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

Well one unit, but composed of an elastic mat (rubber, silicone, ...?), with hard keytops on top, and a plate with holes around the keys.

That case I would glue it back to the mat (but not to the white thing below the mat - that was what I tried to express). 🙂

[JECE 24]

Got it. For the record, the mat looks awfully white since it is translucent and backlit.

[Casey 316]

On 9/16/2022 at 5:55 PM, JECE said:

Can I just super glue the key back on or is that approach unadvisable for some reason?

Yes, you can superglue the "Z" key back on the keyboard. But please be careful when you do so, you must not glue the sides of the key as you won't be able to press it...

Please check the image I've attached, drip a small drop of superglue on the tiny circle on the keyboard (marked red), and place the key back on. Good luck 😄

[JECE 24]

 

1 hour ago, Casey said:

Yes, you can superglue the "Z" key back on the keyboard. But please be careful when you do so, you must not glue the sides of the key as you won't be able to press it...

Please check the image I've attached, drip a small drop of superglue on the tiny circle on the keyboard (marked red), and place the key back on. Good luck 😄

Did that already over the weekend and it worked (not with super glue, but another strong glue)! So far no problems! The tiny glue stain that I previously noticed was slightly to the upper-right from the tiny circle, which may explain why the key fell off in the first place. Thanks for confirming that I did the right thing, @Casey.

By the way, do you happen to have answers to any of my questions about the keyboard software that I asked at the top of this thread? Or feedback on the speaker issues that I raised in the same post?

Edited September 20, 2022 by JECE
substituted "thread" for "post"