Testing a replacement keyboard before installation on a MacBook Pro

The keyboard on my MacBook Pro 13 Mid 2012 has started to play up. The power button and a few more keys wouldn’t work. To power up the laptop, I have disconnected the battery and use the power supply to start it. Other than the keyboard, I don’t notice any other problems with the laptop. Apple diagnostics (the “D” key still works) seem to agree with me. The laptop is useable with an external keyboard.

I had recently decided purchased a reasonably priced replacement A1278 keyboard online and plan to install the part using your awesome teardown tutorial. My question is:

Before I completely disassembling the laptop for keyboard replacement, can I plug in the replacement keyboard into the keyboard ribbon socket and test it? Is it safe to do so? Or does it need to be seated properly inside the computer to work?

My reason for doing this is, I don’t want to rip out the keyboard on my laptop and replace it only to find out that the new keyboard doesn’t work or I run into the same issues because it is a logic board problem not a keyboard problem.

Thanks in advance.

Max

UPDATE:

I went ahead and temporarily removed the internal keyboard ribbon cable off the socket and plugged in another keyboard to test. No problems! Test successful! Now I can confidently replace the MacPro’s keyboard knowing that my logic board is fine.

Hope this helps others.