This Raspberry Pi Pico-Based Macro Keyboard Features a 3D-Printed Circuit Board
Redditor Duzitbetter came up with a clever way to 3D print the circuit board for this Raspberry Pi Pico-based macro keyboard.
As makers, we are extremely lucky that today we can have affordable, professional-level PCBs fabricated on demand in small quantities and shipped to our doorsteps in just a week or two. Those are absolutely your best option if you’re working on projects that require custom boards and you want them to come as close as possible to consumer devices. But the week or two it takes to get PCBs fabricated and shipped can be too long for quick projects and you may not want to spend the money anyway. That’s why Redditor Duzitbetter came up with a really clever way to 3D print the circuit board for this Raspberry Pi Pico-based macro keyboard.
The Raspberry Pi Pico is a brand new microcontroller development board, which is a major departure from the single-board computers that Raspberry Pi is known for. Like Arduino boards, the Pico contains a microcontroller that has its I/O pins broken out to be accessible and a USB port for programming. The Pico can also be configured so that it shows up as a USB HID device when it is plugged into a computer, just like a standard keyboard or mouse. If you connect some key switches to your Pico and configure it in that manner, you can send keyboard shortcuts to the connected computer when a key is pressed. That makes it really handy for building a macro keyboard that can be used for shortcuts, hot keys, and launching more complicated macros.
That is what was done here, with Cherry MX key switches connected to the Raspberry Pi Pico. Those switches and the Pico itself were housed within a simple 3D-printed enclosure, and the switches got 3D-printed key caps. But this project stands out because of that 3D-printed “circuit board.” Instead of waiting for a relatively simply PCB to be fabricated and mailed, Duzitbetter designed and 3D-printed guides for thin copper wires. Those can be layered, just like the traces on a multilayer PCB. Technically speaking, this is just point-to-point wiring. But those 3D-printed guides keep the wiring nice and tidy, while also ensuring that wires don’t touch each other, so bare copper wires can be used. It may not look as nice as a shiny new PCB, but it is perfectly functional and can be quickly 3D-printed while you’re eating lunch.