Adam Welch's FreeDeck Build Upgrades Kilian Gosewisch's Design with a Compact PCB, 3D-Printed Case

Building on the original concept, Welch's upgraded FreeDeck macro keypad comes in through-hole or surface-mount flavors.

Gareth Halfacree
4 years ago β€’ Sensors / Displays
The upgraded FreeDeck includes the choice of THT or SMT components and a 3D-printed case. (πŸ“·: Adam Welch)

Maker Adam Welch has published a video build for an upgraded version of Kilian Gosewisch's FreeDeck, now based on a more compact custom PCB and housed in a 3D-printed case yet still offering a low-cost and massively-configurable alternative to devices like the Elgato Stream Deck.

"I've built a few different macro keyboards over the last couple of years," Welch explains, "but the issue with [these] was that I can't remember what I've assigned to each key. I've ended up trying to 3D print some keycaps for these Cherry MX clone switches but in the end I've just reverted to shoving some stickers on them.

"I love the idea of being able to display what each key is for. The biggest known device for that is the Elgato Stream Deck β€” they're really neat and have loads of integrations and have a full color screen behind the buttons, but they're also pretty pricey and they also need software on your computer to do anything at all."

Welch isn't the only person to be enamoured of the Stream Deck concept: Earlier this year developer Kilian Gosewisch released the FreeDeck, an open source, Arduino Pro Mini-powered alternative which used a low-cost I2C OLED display panel as the top of each key.

"It was Colin Hickey who pointed me in the direction of the FreeDeck," Welch says, "and when i saw this image here on GitHub well I thought to myself I have to have one of those β€” but this prototype is a little bit messy and I've been enjoying designing PCBs recently, so I thought I could make a perhaps slightly neater job of this."

The result is a pair of PCB designs based on Gosewisch's original schematic: The first uses through-hole components, making it as easy as possible to build for those new to soldering; the second switches to surface-mount components, making for a more compact final device.

A video of the build is available on Adam Welch's YouTube channel, while the PCB designs have been incorporated into the official FreeDeck GitHub repository under the GNU General Public Licence 3. The 3D-printable case, meanwhile, can be found on Thingiverse.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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