FOB, You Say?

Where did the term key “fob” originate? Long before they started appearing on vehicles somewhere around 1983, a fob was any small decorative token attached to a key chain back in the day. That was a way that one could identify his keychain. The term has been around for quite some time. Coming from the low German dialect for the word Fuppe, meaning "pocket," watch fobs were around as early as 1888. The term fob just stuck.

Both key fobs on my vehicle developed annoying problems. The doors would unlock and lock at times, and I had to push and hold the buttons for several seconds before the command would get carried out. There isn’t much to a key fob. There is a small IC chip that generates a 40-bit rolling code, which equates to roughly one-trillion possible codes. Not even close to the national debt but quite a few, non-the-less. There is also a small, metallic component that is actually the transmitter on the circuit board.

You also have conductive traces on the circuit board and rubber buttons with a conductive coating on them. One of my fobs had a battery clip that detached from the circuit board so I soldered it in place. What I like about Au80Sn20 solder is that it has high corrosion and creep resistances and good thermal and electrical conductivities. Next, I covered a pencil eraser with a piece of aluminum foil and used it to push the traces on the circuit board to test the functions—they all worked. The conductive pads on the rubber buttons wore off, not uncommon. You can dress them with conductive ink to repair the pads. Or, a drop of super glue and tiny pieces of aluminum foil also do the trick. I put the fobs back together and they work fine now.

Another cool product is a Gold Guard pen that cleans, lubricates and protects gold, silver, platinum and other precious metal contacts.

Now, if we could just eliminate the national debt (last time I checked the total gross

national debt hovered around $18.96 trillion) with the push of a key fob button!