How to fix a remote control (without any special products or tools)

One of my buttons from my remote has been broken for a while now. First I had to push really hard for it to work, now it doesn’t do anything anymore. So I decided to break the damn thing open and take a look inside.

The keys on most remotes are so called “dome switches”. They consist of a plastic sheet with buttons on it with a little black dot at the bottom. When the black stuff touches the pcb, the button gets pushed.

Turns out the black stuff didn’t work anymore. After doing some reading on one of ’em internets, I found out this black stuff is supposed to be conducting. Turns out my black stuff didn’t conduct anymore. I could easily fix it by buying some conducting paint or paste (according to the internets), except that I obviously didn’t want to wait a few days for the product to arrive.

On to another solution then: I took some aluminium foil and some glue and glued a tiny piece of aluminium foil to the switch. I then put everything together again and… tada! The button is working again.

Mind you that I have no clue how long the glue will hold, but with some proper glue it should be fine.

Happy glueing!