Buttons not working

[kotj.mf]

I've been having problems over the past couple of weeks with the buttons on my 5500.

The "down" d-pad button has been slowly going downhill and now rarely works at all. Lately, the Cancel/On/Off button has only been working intermittently.

I've got a feeling that there's some cat hair, dust, crud, and Pringle's crumbs built up behind the buttons that are causing the problem, but I just want to run it by the ZUG before I start taking things apart.

Hmmm... I just noticed that it's less likely to work when the keyboard's open.

Any ideas?

[zbones]

I had a similar problem on my 5500.

ON/OFF only worked with the keyboard open.

It is probably dirty contacts on the copper(brass?) contacts.

Pull down the keboard and look at the back and you will see the contacts for the keyboard used when the keypad is in the closed position. Cleaning these fixed my problem.

your problem also occures with it open so you will have to clean the top contacts which are only accessible with the keypad removed.

This can be done by either removing the 4 screws, two at each side. Make sure you don't lose the screws and tighten them up fully when you refit the keyboard.

You can also remove the keypad without removing any screws by opening the keyboad fully and easing the keypad off by pushing it to one side first. (takes practice)

Once removed you can clean all the contacts and the wire runners.

If the problem persists then again remove the keypad and undo the 4 screws holding the pcb to the keypad and clean the contacts under there.

I doubt you will need the last bit as the runners are the most likely cause.

Peter

[kotj.mf]

You must have been typing that literally as I was cleaning it.

Not having an itty bitty Phillips here at work, I soaked a 2cm strip of paper towel in some 70% rubbing alcohol and managed to wiggle it under the slider to get at the "open" contacts.

Didn't even have to get behind the PCB, and now it works like a charm.

Thanks zbones.

[Chaos]

I've had similar problems on and off with my 5600 (not regularly), and it actually seemed to have something to do with the temperature the Z was. If it was hot (sitting somewhere warmer for a while), the buttons had issues. But once I moved it someplace cool (air conditioner if in the car  ), it once again worked like a charm.