JavaJiveJump

The above should work for an LD too, I imagine?

Carry my LD in my front pocket all the time. I'm thinking buttons were being inadvertently pushed at times (or just wear and tear). Home button and up button on 5-Nav need extra pressure to respond.

javaerb

Just a note from my experience: the up direction of my 5-way was very bad. I finally put a drop of plastic from a hot glue gun around the plastic pin that contacts the metal dome (see original post). Had to be next to the pin, not sit on top of it, or it makes it press too hard and not fit. Just a tiny bit. This fixed the problem. The plastic pin was probably worn down a bit and not pressing well on the switch. But the plastic seems to be wearing away, and the button is getting a little flaky again. I will have to reapply the plastic soon. I know glues have been suggested for this purpose, if you can find one that maintains sufficient hardness, that would be good. Whatever you use, be careful: These are delicate parts.

JavaJiveJump

pruss, now a few months later after applying the Radio Shack tuner/contact cleaner, is it still holding up?

I may have to resort to doing the same.

DTM

Thanks, Pruss!

My navigator was getting to where I had to press in just the right spot, or two or three times, etc. I just gave it the alcohol swab treatment and the initial results are excellent. Just like new!

jhonyrod

pruss, you're the man, I was looking for another pda to replace my TX due the power button issue, thanks a lot!, you've saved my walet too!
(I'm sorry for my english, I speak spanish and, as you can see, I'm a dumb writing in english)

JavaJiveJump

Did anyone have any trouble keeping this plastic in place after performing the procedure? Does it tend to peel back up again?

Also, what kind of gunk was able to get underneath the plastic and the contacts themselves that now make the contacts bad? You'd think the plastic would keep out any foreign debris?

DTM

No problems with the plastic peeling back up. When you reassemble the unit, the plastic sheet is sandwiched between the board it's mounted on and the buttons/navigation pad, so it won't take much to hold it in place. But, as Pruss warned, do try to avoid dissolving the adhesive. I just slightly wetted a Q-tip with alcohol and twirled it (that is, a "drilling" motion) on both sides of the contact, thereby keeping away from the adhesive.

There was no gunk at all, that I could see. I assume it was just oxidation.

Before you close up, be sure there are no stray cotton fibers inside the contact area.

And another tip: while I had the back off, I noticed that the speaker is connected via spring contacts on the back cover and fixed contacts on the PC board. Those looked a bit cruddy, so I cleaned them as well.

Gregte

Good idea.

Whenever I have the back off my TX I clean those contacts and apply a tiny dab of grease to them (vaseline works well, I normally use a silicon grease). This keeps them from oxidizing. It also provides lubrication which can be beneficial for some people at least, as it will help keep the contacting prongs from rubbing a hole in the contact pads. this actually happened to one poster. He said he had a habit of squeezing the back of his TX and thus flexing it. It wore the pads through.

pruss

I had this problem the second time I did this repair. In part it may have been because the alcohol dissolved some glue. I replaced some of the plastic with transparent packing tape.

__________________
Alex Pruss

For my shareware (FontSmoother, myKbd, mySkin, Accenter, FastLaunch and AtomClock) and freeware PalmOS software, go here: http://pruss.mobi

Caitoz

Same problem here. What I did was the following:
Got some plastic screen protectors from Palm and cut one in little squares
the green ribon that holds the home, up button and files button lies on the screen LCD
I put two of those plastic little squares over the LCD in a way that they got placed on both sides (R and L side) of the home and up button over the screen ... somethig like this
[] O []
, where [] = plastic little square from screen protector (placed over the LCD screen) and O = button on the green ribbon.

NOw everytime you push the up or home button the plastic squares give the button extra room to go down... it´s like pushing harder for it to go further down...

I´ve been using this solution for over a year now. Works wonderfully.

__________________
Greetings,
Caitoz

martinloat

This post came to my rescue.

My TX just recently started getting unreliable for switching on & off.
I found and downloaded Audodo as a precautionary measure (PowerBtn had a couple of comments against it so I went with Cyberdudes recommendation). It had me going when it assigned button #1 as the on/off switch on installation so I had to go via the launcher to get at it and change buttons but otherwise very slick.

As I like things to work as they should I then proceeded to dismantle the TX and clean out the power switch.
When you see the amount of dust and pocket lint inside the case you start to understand how the switch gets dirty enough to give problems.

On reflection you do not have to go to the extent of completely separating the two parts of the case. Just open sufficiently to remove the top plastic insert. You can see the square black plastic switch in a metal case attached to the back edge of the circuit board.

A good blowing out and a small drop of WD40 later and all is well again.

Thanks very much for all the good advice.

__________________
Palm TX
UDMH/Warpspeed/Softick Cache/CleanStart
veni, vidi, velcro!
I came, I saw, I stuck around!