RaphCoder13's Birdy44 Is a 3D-Printable, RP2040-Powered Mechanical Keyboard with Surprise Trackpads

Pseudonymous ergonomic keyboard enthusiast "RaphCoder13," hereafter simply "Raph," has designed a 3D-printable open source split keyboard powered by a pair of Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontrollers — and boasting matching trackpads for both sides.

"Birdy44 [is] a low-profile 3D-printed and hand-wired split keyboard," Raph explains of his creation — finished in eye-catching red, black, and white. "All parts were printed in PLA, 0.2mm layer height. The cases and tenting legs have magnets inserts: 4× 8×2mm for each case and 2× 8×3mm for each tenting leg. Add pause during printing to insert the magnets (at 2.60mm for the cases and 3.40mm for the legs). A snug fit and a 0.2mm top chamfer avoid the magnets to be pulled off by the printing head."

Raph's own version of the Birdy44 is built using 44 Kailh Choc V1 mechanical keyboard switches with custom legend-free low-profile keycaps. Inside each half of the keyboard, which connect together using a tip-ring-ring-sleeve (TRSS) cable, is a Waveshare RP2040-Zero microcontroller board to act as the keyboard controller plus diodes for each switch. There's no PCB, though: both sides of the keyboard are hand-wired, rather than assembled on a circuit board.

The keyboard's not just a text entry device, though: both halves include a 40mm Cirque Trackpad, serving as a pointing device or as a control surface for a custom input. These are positioned so as to be the inner-most part of both keyboard sides — allowing for, should you desire, DJ-like deck-spinning operations when you lift your hands from the keys.

The 3D-printed chassis includes magnetized tenting legs, allowing the angle of the keyboard to be adjusted, and there's a carry case for taking it on-the-go. "I intended to use magnet to keep the halves in the transport case," Raph explains. "The cases have cavities to insert 10×3×2[mm] magnets. It prove to be not powerful enough to keep the halves in place, hence I went for 10mm elastic tape Either try using bigger magnets or don't bother with these."

3D-printable files for the keyboard, including the carry case and tenting legs, are available on Raph's GitHub repository under the reciprocal Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.