What kind of a switch/contact is this ?

[tinman123]

a question for someone with more of a grasp on DC electronics than me.

i have a display unit here on a machine, its technical name is a "can display", its working per say but not 100%.
my problem is that it dosent want to do what its told, to pull up error codes you need to hold down the two blue arrow buttons to enter into the error section of it and when in there you can scroll up and down with the arrows and select "ok" or "esc" to get around.

the problem with it is it isnt recognizing a lot of the button pushes, times i can get it to work but a lot of the time it refuses to do anything.
i removed the little rubber button thingy and with a bit of fiddling i found out that at least two of the little squares on the rubber buttons dont really work but the other two will.
i had it half working the other day but its glitchy at best so this eve when i came home with her i opened it again and just scraped my nail gently round the black squares to clean off any dirt if there was any and see would it work a bit better but when i assembled it again it now is refusing to do anything.

what kind of a switch/contact is it dose anyone know?
and is there anything that i could do to make it work right?
i take it that the black square is some form of an electrical contact that when pressed it just closes the loop but is there anything that might repair it, even tho there looks to be nothing wrong with the damn thing.

any thoughts/ help appreciated as a new one is £1100+ vodka.

 

[Sundgist]

Conductive rubber switch.
You can buy repair kits to repaint the conductive material.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/conductive-adhesives/3888673/

I've used similar to repair remote controls etc.

 

[tinman123]

@Sundgist
thanks a million for that info, ill try it.

out of interest, is this the same stuff on the bay,
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/REMOTE-CO...481000?hash=item27f78608e8:g:tGUAAOSwmrlUxR2H
or is it an inferior product and would i be better off buying the RS one, i only ask as the bay is a simple buy, two clicks and its on its way, i dont buy much off RS but i can fill out the details if its a better product, its not the money end of it.

do i have to worry about the pcb side of the contacts or do they get the same treatment as well?

thanks for the help.

 

[Sundgist]

The ebay one you linked is pretty much the same stuff.
RS was just the first place I looked as I was trying to avoid linking to the "bare conductive" brand which is similar but not so great for sticking to rubber.

The pcb contacts look to be bare metal, just give them a clean with some isopropyl alcohol.

For the rubber contacts I'd advise, clean off any oily residue with alcohol, paint on a thin even layer, leave to dry somewhere warm overnight.
Should work good as new once reassembled the following day.