
MacBook Pro Keyboard Failures [Teardown and Explanations] - vanilla_nut
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bjtyaw/macbook_pro_keyboard_failures_why_apples_dust/
======
ethanjstark
It's a great teardown and commentary. I found this presentation easier to
follow, as it has inline images.

[https://imgur.com/gallery/G1EcegS](https://imgur.com/gallery/G1EcegS)

I've always been a "Save $$ by buying used Macs" guy, but I'd be very hesitant
to purchase a used MacBook with this terrible keyboard . . .

~~~
vanilla_nut
Thanks for linking the imgur album -- I didn't realize there was a version
with inline text! Still, I prefer the linked images, since I have a very hard
time reading text in between moving gifs (needless to say, I would not be a
subscriber to the Daily Prophet). Glad to have both here so visitors can read
either version they prefer.

I've also been very much a fan of Macs because they tend to be very well-built
and last a long time for the money. Both of my last macbooks (a 2009 and then
a 2015) have served me very well for much longer than your average laptop
tends to last if you use it every day and take it with you everywhere.
Unfortunately this keyboard in the current version is a dealbreaker: the
frustration, cost, and potential of having to lose my laptop for a week+ or
just lug an external keyboard around is not worth the money. Add in the
useless touchbar and my personal preference to not limit myself to usb-c/avoid
low travel keyboards and you've got a perfect excuse to avoid upgrading.

~~~
ethanjstark
++ on the touchbar being worthless. I use a touchbar MBP for work. It's
managed to complicate the most frequently used functions (brightness + sound
adjustments), and I experience bugs / temporary freezing of both of those
sliders until I cmd + tab switch apps.

------
dmitrygr
I absolutely love the writing style here. Very professional, and then this
lovely tidbit " _I found some household dust and threw it on the mesh._ ". I
cannot help imagining the author walking to the parts bin, ruffling around for
a while, and then picking up a small box with a "aha, there's my box of
standard my household dust!" comment

~~~
Doxin
I'd not be surprised if there was such a thing as "standard household dust".
There's standard peanut butter after all:
[https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/srm-2387-peanut-
butter](https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/srm-2387-peanut-butter)

------
fooker
Why is nobody concerned about the absurdly low key travel distance? Dust, I'm
sure they will find a way to mitigate. Please don't normalize the horrible
keyboards, even ignoring dust issues. You'll be typing on touchpads before you
know it.

~~~
vanilla_nut
It's hard to say if I actually mind the low travel distance. I find these
keyboard very hard to type on because of the increased key size/small gaps
between keys, so I constantly make typos and can't seem to orient my hands
correctly without looking at the keyboard. Because of this, it's hard to look
at the key travel issue in a vacuum.

Also, please read the article. This entire teardown is focused on refuting the
"dust intrusion" hypothesis -- the writer actually seems to think that issues
are rooted in malfunctioning metal domes under the keys linked to either wear,
heat, humidity, or a combination or each. Basically there's no need to
mitigate dust because it can't get into the dome mechanism even in the
2015-2017 keyboards before they installed extra dust guards, and part of the
reason the 2018 still has issues is because, surprise surprise, the issue
isn't just dust.

------
whalabi
Absolutely incredible effort by the guy who did the teardown.

And the extent that Apple went to just to protect tiny delicate mechanisms
from dust is astonishing.

~~~
fvdessen
I wonder if the dust impermeability of the mechanism is not a part of the
problem. While it would prevent most of the dust to get in, it could also
prevent the dust from getting out.

------
mi100hael
Cool teardown, but I'd be interested to see a disassembly of a known-bad key
to compare and see what looks different.

------
chendragon
This is my personal opinion, after seeing this teardown. If you look at some
of the images it looks like the actual contact areas on the PCB that the metal
domes contact on are rather small, and both the dome and the contacts look
like they're made out of a hard material.

0) The top side sealing on these keyboards (at least some of them; one of mine
had a hole somewhere) isn't that good. One method I used to fix these keys is
to dab some rubbing alcohol or ethanol into the dome thing with a qtip, and
somehow it finds its way under the dome. The purpose of the black tape
mentioned in the article is likely to direct the light from the backlight of
the keyboard, it's easy to damage with this method of cleaning it and it
causes the backlight to look bad. Solution: electrical tape carefully cut to
size.

1) I feel like the debouncing (filtering the tendency for hard-on-hard
contacts to make intermittent contact) is inherently difficult with a design
like this. There's a lot of things to go wrong here, and even on a brand new
keyboard I noticed that before the system boots (on EFI password, or
FileVault2 Unlock Prompt) the keyboard is MUCH more sensitive to key repeats -
Probably because half of the debouncing is done in the driver.

Perhaps if they could find out how to add a thin enough slice of carbon-filled
rubber (like the black pads under the rubber remote control buttons in a telly
remote) under the domes, combined with larger contact pads, the softness would
allow the contact to conform to the mating surfaces and make more reliable
contact. Furthermore it will absorb some shock and reduce the tendency for the
switch to 'bounce'.

Furthermore, carbon filled rubber doesn't tend to corrode.

2) Perhaps they could move to capacitive sensing and do away with actually
making contact. This way, there would be less issues with contact bouncing,
and no current actually has to flow.Then all the electrics would be completely
sealed off. This has the drawback of needing a complicated keyboard
controller. Last I remember the keyboard still had logic gates hardwired to do
things like SMC reset so this would be harder.

2b) Or just take the key matrix sheets from the 2012-2015 MacBook Pros, which
were pressure activated by way of rubber protrusions under the rubber domes,
and put the new butterfly keys on top and use a tiny metal disk a la iPhone 4s
power button to press on the actual key matrix

Another oddity I noticed on a machine I recently had the keyboard changed at
the Apple Store on is that the right Shift key (which just got stuck again),
is very close to the left side of the aluminum, more so than the right, and
isn't centered. It happens that the key is most stuck on the left, so perhaps
the accidental interference fit is causing it to stick.

~~~
vanilla_nut
And after considering all of these potential fixes and mitigations for
keyboard problems, any sane individual is forced to wonder: why on earth would
anyone want to create an entirely new keyboard mechanism when so much can
apparently go wrong? Really gives you respect for the folks who designed some
of the original scissor switches when you realize that one of the biggest,
most hardware-talented tech companies out there can't design anything better
(or, perhaps to put it less subjectively... more reliable).

Surprisingly akin to the experienced software developer's reflex of trying to
avoid total rewrites at all costs: even if something has issues, like scissor
switches breaking when you try to remove keys or falling off under heavy
usage, it's often easier to try to fix warts on something battle-tested than
to improve core functionality of a brand-new form-over-function design.

