Depending on how much coffee you spilled in and what you had in it (Cream and/or Sugar) you could try popping the key caps off and carefully blot up the spillage up with swabs and using distilled water (not tap!) wipe the areas down to dissolve and remove the water soluble elements and neutralize the acids. Coffee & cream will also need to be cleaned out with a good quality Isopropyl alcohol (reagent grade is the best) as the fats in them will need to be dissolved and removed. Isopropyl alcohol also is a great dryer as well to remove some of the water from within the coffee and what you needed to clean up the sugar afterwards.
If this fails to fix things then you'll need to take the top case off and remove as much stuff off as you can (key caps etc...) and with distilled water wash the keyboard area down to help control things I use a large medical syringe (no needle) to control where I bathe and control the run off as you don't want water every where. After I do the water treatment on the effected areas I try to shake out as much water as I can then I repeat the process this time with Isopropyl alcohol to remove the fats and to help speed up the drying of the water. I still let the cover dry out a good day or two where the sun warms it by my window before putting it back together.
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It's still a 50-50% chance recovery, sometimes Is till can't get a key or two working at which point I try again or I just replace the top cover.
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It's still a 50-50% chance recovery, sometimes I still can't get a key or two working at which point I try again or I just replace the upper case.
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The trick here is time, the longer one waits to address the spillage the more damage could be happening not just within the top cover, your main logic board and battery could be wet as well - Tick - Tock!
+
The trick here is time, the longer one waits to address the spillage the more damage could be happening not just within the upper case, your main logic board and battery could be wet as well - Tick - Tock!
As I'm paid by a company I have a bit more latitude on trying extreme repairs like this. You may want to see if an independent Apple Authorized repair center can help you (Apple won't service you - in their eyes it's water damaged). The independent may just tell you they will only replace the top cover and may refuse the repair if the coffee has gotten into the logic bd and battery.
Sorry Tom no dice ;-{
The keyboard is riveted to the top case.
Depending on how much coffee you spilled in and what you had in it (Cream and/or Sugar) you could try popping the key caps off and carefully blot up the spillage up with swabs and using distilled water (not tap!) wipe the areas down to dissolve and remove the water soluble elements and neutralize the acids. Coffee & cream will also need to be cleaned out with a good quality Isopropyl alcohol (reagent grade is the best) as the fats in them will need to be dissolved and removed. Isopropyl alcohol also is a great dryer as well to remove some of the water from within the coffee and what you needed to clean up the sugar afterwards.
If this fails to fix things then you'll need to take the top case off and remove as much stuff off as you can (key caps etc...) and with distilled water wash the keyboard area down to help control things I use a large medical syringe (no needle) to control where I bathe and control the run off as you don't want water every where. After I do the water treatment on the effected areas I try to shake out as much water as I can then I repeat the process this time with Isopropyl alcohol to remove the fats and to help speed up the drying of the water. I still let the cover dry out a good day or two where the sun warms it by my window before putting it back together.
It's still a 50-50% chance recovery, sometimes Is till can't get a key or two working at which point I try again or I just replace the top cover.
The trick here is time, the longer one waits to address the spillage the more damage could be happening not just within the top cover, your main logic board and battery could be wet as well - Tick - Tock!
As I'm paid by a company I have a bit more latitude on trying extreme repairs like this. You may want to see if an independent Apple Authorized repair center can help you (Apple won't service you - in their eyes it's water damaged). The independent may just tell you they will only replace the top cover and may refuse the repair if the coffee has gotten into the logic bd and battery.
Good Luck!