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Bolt Industries’ Ian Dunn has launched a crowdfunding marketing campaign for do-it-yourself keyboard kits powered by the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board: the Pico 14 quantity pad and Pico 87 tenkeyless keyboard.
“The Pico 87 keyboard is fabricated from three layers of 1.6mm FR-4 that screw collectively to type a very stable keyboard,” Dunn explains of his design. “The underside layer gives rigidity, nevertheless it additionally covers the solder pads. The center layer holds all the electronics. The highest layer provides rigidity in addition to an aesthetic cowl.”
The keyboard kits themselves, which require meeting, include a selection of Cherry MX-style Gateron mechanical switches: Tactile clicky Blue, linear clicky Inexperienced, and near-silent Brown, plus linear Black, Yellow, Crimson, and White switches so as of descending actuation pressure.
An on-board Raspberry Pi Pico, which hosts an RP2040 microcontroller, acts because the keyboard controller utilizing Dunn’s custom-made BMK CircuitPython-based firmware. The keyboard PCB itself, in the meantime, has a selection of mini-USB or USB Sort-C connector — the latter extra of a problem for newbie solderers, Dunn notes — and an non-obligatory USB 2.0 hub.
Every keyboard or keypad is supplied as a do-it-yourself soldering package. (📷: Bolt Industries)
In addition to, or instead of, the Pico 86 keyboard Dunn has additionally designed a extra compact quantity pad dubbed the Pico 14. “For many individuals, a numerical keypad is important,” Dunn says. “The answer is a separate, matching numerical keypad. This key pad can be utilized as a numerical keypad, or a macro pad. It matches properly subsequent to the first keyboard.”
Each kits are actually funding on Kickstarter, with delivery anticipated to start in Might; PCB-only rewards begin at $15 whereas full kits are priced at $27 for the Pico 14 and $99 for the Pico 87.
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