Revive your old remote control |
By Christoffer Järnåker |
 Several years ago I bought a new AV receiver, a Denon AVR-1802. A great receiver by the way with all the bells and whistles that I wanted at the time. Now I actually want more, but that’s off topic. It has served me well, but after about two years the remote started failing on the volume control buttons. Especially the volume up was very tough to get to work and you really had to push the button hard for anything to happen. Well, being the handy-man in the house I opened it up and cleaned both the rubber pieces and the circuit board with chemical gasoline and everything was fine. For about like another year months, then it started to fail again. So I started looking around for a replacement remote control and found that I either had to settle for a generic replacement (which never has the buttons in the right place and usually is less useful then the original) or buy a new original one ( Denon RC-897 ). They have the guts to charge nearly $80 for the original. Plus shipping of course!! |
 Hell no I would pay that for a remote that the children play with and that would also break down with the same problem. But hey, I never use the tuner buttons on my remote so can’t I just swap places on them? They’re both located on the side have indicators on them that makes sense. Sure volume is arrow up and down, and the tuner is plus and minus, so what. |
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32 queries. 0.486 seconds
November 28th, 2005 at 17:11
HOW TO - Revive your old remote
Chris writes “Remote controls are a consumption product. They fall in the floor, the get coffee spilled over them, the get stepped on (maybe not..) - and they wear out. In this how-to we will show you how to revive your remote by swapping the buttons …
November 28th, 2005 at 22:14
Tape some aluminum foils under the buttons(where the conductive rubber is) also works. I think it’s even featured in the MAKE magazine once.
November 29th, 2005 at 6:12
MCM offers re-carboning kits for worn out buttons. It’s just a little swab and some carbon like paint.
www.mcminone.com
November 30th, 2005 at 7:29
Culito, do you have an exact link for those re-carboning kits? I can’t seem to find it
December 3rd, 2005 at 3:30
Stumbled upon this page from Make magazine.
My replacement remote had dead buttons like this (generic remote with 5×11 buttons, all the same shape).
Just needed to open it up and rotate the rubber pad 180 degrees, swapping the dead buttons with rarely used ones.
Thanks for the tip…
December 4th, 2005 at 8:20
http://www.webelectricmagazine.com/00/3/buttons.htm
April 1st, 2006 at 22:38
I had exactly the same problem with exactly the same model receiver. Volume buttons failed in 2 years..
It seems it is a common problem with this receiver. Just ordered a repair kit to fix the conducting ink
behind the buttons.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:08
Swapping out the buttons by the cutting method worked perfectly on this Denon RC-897. I had the same problem with the on and off buttons, but cleaned them with rubber cement thinner and now they work well.
Thanks for the tip.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:56
I just used a pencil and it works well. Not sure how long it’ll last though.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:19
Thank you from France Chris as i had the same problem since 3 years, and have solved just now through your genial solution
Many thanks !!!!
Antoine
November 30th, 2007 at 12:19
Thank you from France Chris as i had the same problem since 3 years, and have solved just now through your genial solution
Many thanks !!!!
Antoine
February 4th, 2008 at 3:41
Thank you for the heads up man! I’m do this to all my controllers now. I have a portable DVD player remote has bubble hard plastic buttons ma by I should work a tut for fixing one of them like new,
July 27th, 2008 at 15:48
Thank You……I had the EXACT same problem and also refused to pay the $65+ for a new remote. Your solution worked PERFECTLY!