Salim Benbouziyane's Ocreeb Is an Impressive Custom Macropad with a Clever Hidden Feature

Driven by CircuitPython on an RP2040 microcontroller, this fully 3D-printed macropad includes two rotary encoders and 12 mechanical keys.

Designer Salim Benbouziyane has put together a stylish macro keypad based on the Adafruit Kee Boar KB2040 and a custom PCB, designed to offer not only a 3×4 matrix of mechanical keys but two rotary encoders — and custom-built right down to the keycaps.

"Ocreeb is a 12-key macro keypad with two rotary encoders, custom keycaps and under-glow RGB," Benbouziyane explains of his creation. "The board is running KMK firmware on the Adafruit KB2040."

Macropads, which provide programmable keys to use as either custom inputs or to trigger a pre-defined macro, are a common project — but the Ocreeb goes a little further than most. While the controller, an Adafruit Kee Boar KB2040 with Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, is off-the-shelf, it's connected to a custom PCB, which is housed in a 3D-printed chassis — complete with a transparent PETG layer to allow the RGB LED under-glow to shine through.

This custom macropad is 3D-printed and powered by an RP2040 module on a custom PCB. (📹: Salim Benbouziyane)

Even the keycaps are custom, with dye-sublimation legends, and tailored specifically for the user — in this case Benbouziyane's brother. "He's a front-end developer and he does music in his spare time, so I added an extra bonus feature for him to discover and play with: If you tap rapidly the lock key four times you enter a secret layer," Benbouziyane adds, "where this becomes a MIDI input device."

Benbouziyane has chosen to make the Ocreeb open source, publishing the firmware source, PCB design files, and STL files for 3D printing on GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3. Instructions on assembling the macropad can be found on the project's page.

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