Someone asked about this a while back. Well, I ended up with a sticky key and had to do it myself. So here is my process.

First off the standard disclaimer. This is what I did and I cannot verify it will not totally destroy your remote. Use this procedure at your own risk. Don’t come to me if you end up with a paperweight. Also while the rubbing alcohol did not damage my unit – you might want to try somewhere safe first. URC may change the design of the remote over time so any and all of this may not work if your remote is different from mine.

I did this to fix a sticky key on mine. Some kind of substance (probably juice or soda) made one of the number keys unusable. This is not for the faint of heart, so do not attempt unless you have no other choice. My warrantee was up, the problem was of my own doing, and I have a spare so there was no issues with doing this…

Stuff you will need:

1) A set of jeweler’s screwdrivers (straight and Phillips)
2) A “Nerd style” pocket screwdriver (optional)
3) Reading glasses or jeweler’s loop if you are over 20 :-)
4) Patience
5) Q-tip’s
6) Rubbing Alcohol

Ok, let’s get started…

First, you need to remove the battery. We don’t want to short anything out.

Second, we need to separate the case. This is the tricky part. We don’t want to gouge the case (your fingers will find any imperfection), nor do we want to break the display or anything else. What I did is as follows. I took a small flat “Nerd” style screwdriver (you know the type – fits in a pocket protector and has both style blades) and started separating the case. I opened the cover to the programming port, pushed in on the bottom (more towards the top end) and levered the case apart from the first catch. Do NOT use the programming port connector as a lever or I’m sure you will break it. Use the bottom part of the plastic case to lever the top part up. There are many plastic catches along each side. Once you get one edge up near the programming port, you can work around the unit. What you want to do is very slowly find each catch and push in on the bottom part with your thumb, and then insert the screwdriver and push up on the top part, Don’t twist (or at least not much) or you will mark up the edge and be sorry you did. The idea is to pop open each catch all the way around. Scary, but it can be done (or at least I did it).

So, now to the top. On mine there are four screws. 3 are easy to get to but the fourth is under a circuit card so you WILL need the jewelers screwdriver now. It must have a very thin shank or you will never angle it in.

Now that we have the top off we have to worry about the speaker. On mine the connector would not eject so I had to deal with a dangling display and top piece from then on (the display is not held down except by a ribbon cable. Just a warning for when you attack the top. Fortunately the keys are not individual so when you get to that it’s not a big deal.

So now having the display apart, it was easy to use a Q-tip and alcohol to clean the side of the keys and the top panel where they go through. Just stay away from the carbon on the underside of the keys as in the past I have found that to be very fragile.

Putting it together is just reversing the process. After all this mine works flawlessly again.

Hope this helps someone, but again, do not attempt this unless you are comfortable with small parts and willing to accept the risk of creating a very expensive paperweight. Good luck.

On the older remotes, you'd give them a twist to help open up the plastic snaps. It's hard to pry a remote apart without leaving dings and gouges.

This worked like a charm for me today. Thanks!

Thanks.

Opening the case and cleaning the contact under my non-functional "Off" button with a little alcohol saved me from having to get a new remote!

Thank you! I spilled a drink on my remote which made the keys very sticky and practically unusable. Successfully used your instructions to open the remote and clean it with rubbing alcohol. As described, we had 4 screws that held the circuit board in place, with 2 of them being partially under the circuit card, but not so much that we couldn't reach them easily with a small screw driver. We had to pry the circuit board and pushbutton sheet up, as they were firmly stuck to the remote cover even with the screws removed. Created an account on this website just to let you know how happy I am with my "new" remote!