AR8000 old vs new keypad?

[TassieJay]

I know that early AR8000 keypads had a soft keypad that had troubles with the imprinting rubbing off, and that was resolved in later versions with a 'harder' keypad that had a more glossy appearance.

Has anyone had experience with both types of keypad? Do you think that the original 'soft' keypad could have the tops of each key carefully coated in a varnish to provide equivalent protection?

Or would anyone know if the replacement 'hard' keypads are still available from anywhere?

 

[dkf435]

The newer ones did have a coating over the key symbols. Clear coat for finger nails possibly work??

David Kb7uns

 

[TassieJay]

I was worried about going down that route - what if the applied varnish coated the buttons, but in the process also 'ate' at the imprinting. Well, I got brave enough and tried a hobby / scrapbooking spray varnish. It's meant for going over photos etc, so shouldn't be harmful to the printing on the key tops, and that turned out to be correct. The hobby / scrapbooking varnish comes out as a much finer mist, and only makes a very thin coat per spray - I ended up using four coats to do my keypad, and really it could do with more still.
If anyone else has an AR8000 with a good condition keypad, or one that you don't want to deteriorate any further, I can recommend a varnish as mentioned above to protect your keypad. It does the job well... just be sure to use enough coats of the stuff to give it enough protection.

 

[SCPD]

aor

email AOR they are very nice at helping you with parts I had a very nice man even talk to me on the phone about the parts I needed.