Raspberry Pi Pico Boasts Tiny DIY Keyboard

If you miss the days of pecking at a tiny keyboard then you are in luck. Hackaday member TEC.IST has produced what he claims is the tiniest ever keyboard using 59 microswitches, a custom PCB, and a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board.

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The pico-sized keyboard is the same size as the Pico (51mm x 21mm), just a little bit thicker thanks to the extra PCB and switches directly soldered to it. And while there are no keycaps - letters and other button designations are printed directly onto the PCB's silkscreen. Running the show is Circuit Python code, well known for being an excellent means to create your own custom keyboard. The microswitches are B3U-1000Ps, which are small enough to fit on the board and large enough to be pressed with a fingernail, and the Pico board handles all the input via its GPIO pins, and handles the USB interface via its micro USB port. 

This is TEC.IST’s first foray into the world of keyboards, his previous project being to somehow cram an AMD Threadripper CPU into a laptop. A full bill of materials and PCB diagrams, along with a video explaining how the key matrix code was written, are available from the Hackaday site.