milliAmp

The batteries recently ran down on one of our Apple Wireless Keyboards. I replaced the batteries but it wouldn’t turn back on. I replaced them with a known good set of batteries and still nothing, no lights turning on, not pairing with the machine either.

After Googling around for a while, I finally came across a few people mentioning a problem many of them had been experiencing where the contact on the inside end of the battery tube would no longer connect to the circuit board in the keyboard. Their resolution was to make a small ball of foil or steel wool and put in inside the battery compartment before the batteries.

Out of curiosity, I decided to give it a go. I rolled up a small square of foil, about 1 inch square into a ball and placed it down the tube. Popped the three batteries back in and bingo, the keyboard lit up. What an odd little manufacturing fault.

I think this keyboard is probably around 3 or 4 years old now as a newer model that takes takes only two batteries came out in 2009. I think I’d probably have a bit of a mission on my hands making a manufacturing fault claim now, I don’t think I could be bothered following it through. For now, the keyboard works again so I don’t have a big problem any more.