[SOLVED] Keyboard replacement for mid-2012 MacBook Pro ?

[RadicalDelusion]

The L key no longer works on my MacBook Pro. I think a drop of water got on it. The machine has been upgraded to the max, with 16 GB of RAM, the super drive removed and replaced with a 1 TB SSD, as well as the internal HDD replaced with a 1 TB SSD. It has FireWire 800 ports, which I need because I have audio interfaces that use them. It also still has USB 3.0 and a built-in HD WebCam. It is also capable of running older versions of OS X, going back to mountain lion, and can run anything as new as Catalina. That enables me to not have to upgrade my ProTools license yet again and purchase unnecessary plug-ins when I have perfectly working versions now. I did my research and chose this machine specifically because of the flexibility and the peripheral ports that are no longer available in newer ones.

I have researched what replacing the keyboard entails, and to somebody who has never done it on this particular machine before, it is estimated to take about four hours, with a lot of room for mistakes that could be catastrophic. I have purchased the keyboard from Amazon, and have an OEM Apple replacement on hand. I’m looking for advice from anybody who may have done this before.

Having to connect a USB keyboard or have a Bluetooth keyboard, or to use the on screen keyboard and click on the L every time I need to use it has become extremely frustrating to the point where I’m not even using the computer or doing what I need to do. I’ve built machines and repaired machines in the past, but I’ve watch the YouTube video for the keyboard replacement and they made this machine with the intent of making anything other than changing the ram in the hard drive very difficult.

if there is a third-party after that would allow me to remap a key that I never use and have it act as the LQ, that would be an ideal solution. Of course, Apple would not give me any information as to whether or not that existed, and my searches have come up empty. If anybody knows of any such app or of a way to do so with the terminal commander something, I would such greatly appreciate a link or some instructions. It’s absolutely theoretically possible, therefore unless Apple has gone out of their way to block people from doing it, I imagine someone out there knows how.

If I didn’t already have two desktop computers, I would probably just use this one as a desktop and say forget the keyboard. But I do need a portable machine for Recording Music also. I’m just very daunted by the task of spending four hours and having to concentrate 100% or potentially ruining the computer forever. Any advice from anyone with any experience with this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

 

[Lutfij]

Seems like you need to contact Louis Rossmann. I have worked on Apple laptop's prior and my answer is almost always simple; I won't do it. The complexity and the possibility of some things going wrong are a little high with Apple devices.

Personally I'd have used a wireless or a wired keyboard as opposed to replacing the keyboard and potentially ending up with a bricked/dead laptop.

My personal advice, would be, be patient and make sure you reverse the steps in which you disassembled in order to reassemble it, as you've seen in Tenet.

 

[hexcs]

I honestly wouldn't recommend doing a DIY if you haven't done that kind of repair before especially if you bought keyboard insert module only and not the whole palmrest unit. The process is quite fiddly and you do need decent tools and theres lot of screws involved. Fairly labour consuming and unfortunately other parts are in the way so you need to be extra careful and do it in right order . Make sure to disconnect your battery before the rest of the disassembly.
Those keyboards can go faulty quite often more if any form of liquid gets inside. It is something we work on regularly at Hex in Scotland UK.