Agrident APR450 Reader Keypad Repair

Plastic Keypad Membrane Repair

Tear it down and see what needs fixed

Another interesting repair brought in by one of our local sheep farmers, This is a Agrident APR450 eID reader a work tool used to ID and record cattle, sheep or new lambs when born via an ear tag. We have been asked to look and repair if possible, we tested the device over and found the keypad was unresponsive. Opening the device we found that the blue waterproof sealing has done a good job of not letting in water into the device keeping the mainboard and internals free from liquid ingress but unfortunately the top numbered keypad has let a small amount of liquid in underneath and this has corroded parts of the keypad membrane track which has disconnected the keypad from the main device making it un-useable and also hindering the retrieval of any data stored on the device.

How we repaired the plastic keypad membrane

We have cleaned the main part of the membrane and repaired the track with silver conductive paint (also used to repair rear window demisters for automotive uses). We also used a rubber sealer to fill the gap were the keypad connection goes through to the main board connector which should ensure no liquid can pass under the top numbered membrane and into the main device. Before fitting the top numbered membrane we applied a liquid primer to the device frame to ensure the numbered membrane adheres to the frame again making it as waterproof as possible. We then applied new Tesa industrial double sided tape to the back of the numbered membrane making sure there were no gaps and fitted the membrane to the device. With the keypad membrane fitted as it was originally we can see were improvements could be made to make it a more integral part of the main device, with that said build quality is very good and you would not be disappointed if purchasing the device for daily work.

We checked Agrident’s main website for replacement parts and found that there were no spares for repair available to buy directly, but if you contact sales you may be able to purchase replacements. If you find you are facing the issues above you are more than welcome to call into the shop and we will do are best to help get your lambing season off to the best start possible.