Can I take off the keyboard on a Blackberry Pearl Flip 8230?

[Nunners]

I fell asleep on my phone last night, and I drooled on the keyboard! The majority of the keys still work, but a select few, mainly on the top of the keyboard and including the trackball, have stopped working. I can still move the curser using the trackball, but when I push the trackball to select something, I have to push it a bunch of times before it works. Is there any way I can remove only the keyboard panel on the device in order to clean the drool out??

[Jaszman]

Nunners, 1st thing to do is realize that your phone is wet, and take out the battery to protect the main board from damage.

The answer to your question is yes you can replace the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) keypad membrane. That is the pad that connects to the main board, under the keypad itself. They can be found online at Ebay, Amazon, or many different suppliers, and cost between $20 - $30.

The trackball assembly can also be found online, and cost between $15 - $25.

There are many posts in this forum that address your problems, How to clean a trackball (deep clean, requires disassembly), how to dry out a wet phone, etc.

If I were you I would remove the phone battery, and place it in a bag of white rice for at least 3 - 5 days. The white rice will pull the moisture out of the phone and avoid damage to to main board.

Be sure the phone is dry before you put the battery back in !!!!!!

After the phone is dry, then you can figure out what you need to do to fix it. Who knows it might be fine after drying out and cleaning the trackball.

The 8220/8230 is not real easy to disassemble so watch online videos to teach yourself about it. A good one is by CNNCN. com online at you tube, (just type BB 8220 disassembly in google search) If you have to disassemble the phone you will not have to take apart the upper/screen half and that is good because it gets dicey at that point, with the ribbon connectors and all.

Let us know how you are doing, and what problems you are running into. Often the solution is as simple as cleaning the trackball with an eraser.

PS: While your phone is drying, I've learned from one of the guru's on this site that you can go to any drugstore and buy a cheep Tmobile pay as you go phone ($15 - $20) put your sim card in it and it should work for you to at least have phone service while you are fixing your phone.