2015 MBA liquid spill

Have a couple questions about repairing a 2015 MBA after a liquid spill (coffee). As in is it worth trying?

I got my hands on it within an hour of the spill, stripped it down and removed the logic board. Cleaned with isopropyl alcohol and dried out before putting back together — I did not strip down the keyboard.

The MBA boots, though the there is no backlight. I connected to an external monitor and mirrored the display (command + F1).

The other issue is the keyboard. OSX does not recognise it, so though there is clearly liquid in there (some of the keys work, though lots of error beeps, etc). I connected an external (wired) keyboard and still get the error beeps.

I cleaned the display connector again, so am thinking the fuse might be gone? Not much point stripping down the keyboard if that is the case…

A couple follow-up questions

  1. If I want to take the drive out of the 2015 MBA, are there options aside from the OWC Envoy Pro (~$170)?
  1. Are there any bare cable type adapters, ideally one that can also connect to an SSD from a 2012 MBA and other SSDs?

Honestly, it sounds like the machine is a write off. @iMic would probably have a better idea though.

You can’t make a 2012 SSD work in a 2015 machine. If you want to get data off the old SSD, or use as a second drive in a PC or Mac Pro tower, you can get PCI adapters for those SSDs off eBay - but make sure you get the right year one. What size SSD is it? May have some value.

e.g. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/6-12-pins-SSD-Card-Hard-Disk-to-SATA-Adapter-for-Apple-Macbook-Air-2011-etc/181307205299?hash=item2a36c066b3:g:MOoAAOSw9r1WAkmt

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It does sound like at least the backlight fuse is shot, if the connector looks good but the display still has no backlit image. Possibly some other components in the circuit as well.

The keyboard could be a result of coffee in the key matrix, a Trackpad fault or an IPD Flex Cable fault - all three are interconnected. It could also be a Logic Board too, but the other components are more likely when there’s a keyboard issue.

Considering the extent of the damage - Logic Board (fuse), Top Case, possibly Trackpad and IPD Flex - there isn’t much left in a MacBook Air beyond those parts. If you were to repair it, I wouldn’t bother with Apple as the cost would likely exceed that of a new machine. Other repairers however may have more success.

My own machine is a coffee-damaged MacBook Air, in which I stripped the entire top case down, removed every key and washed it in detergent. The keyboard came back to life, and it was good as a beat-around machine, although certainly not perfect (it had no keyboard backlight, for example). My Logic Board was fine, which did make it easier. So it’s certainly not impossible to salvage it if you get creative, but it depends how much money, time or effort you’re willing to put into it. In any case, it’s bound to take a lot of at least one of those three.

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