Arrgh...stuck phone button! (1 Viewer)

[Anthony F.]

Okay--classic after hours post. I have an older cordless phone that works great EXCEPT the #9 button now sticks. I have to press hard to get it to work and sometimes it presses twice, which is a real hassle with long pin numbers that go awry. It's long out of warranty, but I don't want to replace the phone (with answering machine) just for one button. Any easy solutions for this?

Thanks.

 

[Seth_L]

Open it up and clean the rubber pad with the buttons on it with warm water so you get the sticky off.

 

[CRyan]

Yep and wipe off the sensor plate as well where the buttens press. I have seen these messy enough to prevent contact.

 

[Anthony F.]

Is there nothing HTF can't solve?

Thanks!

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I had the same problem, and Seth and CRyan are right. Take 'er apart and see if you can clean the plate and the rubber button pad.

I'd recommend rubbing alcohol and a q-tip.

However, my phone recently started losing connection with the base. The battery seems fine.. it's just when I go to answer it, there's no line and then it beeps like it's given up looking for a connection. This happens when I'm 2 ft from the base. I usually have to disconnect the line or the power to get it to start working again. And then it goes out within a few calls.

I'm getting tired of racing downstairs to answer the phone.
It's a Panasonic 900 MHz "Gigarange".

Any ideas?

 

[ZacharyTait]

"111-1111? Lois? Damn!"

"111-1112? Lois? Damn!"

"867-5309? No, that's not it! Damn, you Tommy TuTone!"

For some reason, the thread title made me think of this.

 

[Leila Dougan]

If you can't find a way to take it apart, try Scrubbing Bubbles. I've had good luck with the stuff. . .just put a little squirt on the keypad and scrub with an old toothbrush. Let it dry and it should be better. It may take several applications to get all the gunk off though.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

There's always a way to take it apart! I've done several remotes. After the screws are out, check to see which half is on the outside. One half has an inside lip, and the other an outside lip. An eyeglass screwdriver and metal nail files work great here - at least to get it started. After you find the first hook (where the outside has an extra long pice that fits into a slot on the inside piece), you just keep on going around, and work it back and forth until the two pieces just fall apart. Just keep the screwdrivers on the edge and don't push then in too far or they may destroy a circuit board.

Glenn

 

[DonnyD]

Those of us with children will have a ton of experience with fixing "sticky" buttons.......... My son's ps2 controllers have taught me to keep my HT remotes to myself...LOL

 

[Anthony F.]

I managed to take it apart without breaking it--a major feat on my part--but after cleaning the rubber pad and contacts there's only mild improvement. It seems that the buttoms move smoothly, but the "9" just requires more effort to register. Assuming my wife will trust me with a second round of surgery, does more cleaning seem worthwile?

 

[Denward]

One of my old Uniden phones had electrical conductor material on the bottom of the buttons and when the material wore out, the buttons had trouble registering. If your phone seems to work this way, you can go to an auto parts store and buy stuff used to fix rear window defoggers. It comes in a small bottle with a brush (kind of like fingernail polish). I learned this trick from one of the remote control forums.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Has someone in your house been calling a lot of 1-900 numbers?

 

[Anthony F.]

Err...no...what kind of numbers are those? :b

Denward, I'll see if I can track down the cleaner you mentioned.

 

[MikeSerrano]

If I am not mistaken, the stuff Denward is talking about is not a cleaner but more of a "liquid metal". You brush it on (like a nail polish as Denward described) where you want to fix/replace the conductor.

-Mike

 

[Denward]

Mike is correct.