Posts: 1,841
Threads: 54
Joined: Jul 2005
Hi,
as long as they have the tactile feedback,
I wouldn't care about the rattle.
Do the keys all have the same straight travel way,
and same angle when depressed?
Raymond
Posts: 883
Threads: 17
Joined: Feb 2006
If you open it, you may find some of the heat stake mushroom heads have sheared off. The result is a loose circuit board, which makes keys in those areas loose and feel soft when pressed. Once they start to fail, it is like a zipper or a crack in plastics. The forces get transferred to the next rivet in line and then it fails, so on and so on. This is common on Voyagers that have been pounded heavily.
The best solution is to glue the loose areas with a drop of rubber toughened cyanoacrylate on each post that is missing the mushroom. Loctite 410 is good choice if you can get it. ** BE CAREFUL ** Too much and you'll glue a key in the up position!
Posts: 1,792
Threads: 62
Joined: Jan 2005
J.S. --
It's difficult to tell if the movement is truly "excessive" from the description. Is it that the keys rattle a bit when the calc is shaken, or that some keys travel excessively when pressed?
I have three Voyagers -- a 15C from 1983, a 16C from 1985, and a 12C from 1993. On the 15C and the 12C, the keys have a bit of freeplay in their "slots"; they rattle when shaken.
On the 16C, the keys stay firmly in place until pressed -- no rattling.
None of these show any sign of having been pounded, and they all work perfectly.