Baking an Apple Pi or:
Tags: 3D Printing, Apple, Raspberry Pi, DIY, Mechanical Keyboards

I used a mounting plate model(shown in pink) for a 60% keyboard as a reference on where I should but the mounting standoffs. From there, I needed to create the screw holes so the original hardware could still assemble the two plastic body shells together, and then finally, there are some cutouts for both cable management and reduction in weight.

I also had to cut the model into 3 pieces for printing since my printer has a relatively small build volume. However, everything looked to be in order (at least for a prototype) so I figured let’s go ahead and test out my measurements.

I pleased to see that after diligently measuring and making sure I was accurate, that everything seems to fit perfectly. I screwed in the board to the standoffs with some standard m.2 screws that you pick up at your local hardware store. I was a little concerned about the amount of deck flex that would occur but thankfully, it was within my margin of error. Now that the board was properly installed I could focus my attention on the next stage of the keyboard build.

success!

Section 4c: Improving the stabilizers

I would venture to wager that the vast majority of the people that will be reading this blog, probably have never thought twice about how much work goes into making a custom board. Especially since loads of people (myself included) just buy a mass-manufactured model for the first introduction.

However, if you browse the mechanical keyboard subreddit, you’ll find lots of dedicated and diehard enthusiasts that painstakingly go over every detail of a build to make sure it is perfect. Since this was my first ever mech keyboard build, I figured that in the spirit of r/mk, I would indulge in some of these enthusiast's practices. One such of these details includes making sure that there is little to no rattle in the stabilizers; so let’s tackle that one first.

I’m not going to go into every little detail about this process since there are various videos going into more detail. However, the general steps are such:

disassemble the stabilizer. coat the interior housing of the stabilizer's feet, metal bar, and any other place where plastic contacts plastic with a thin-ish layer of dielectric grease or equivalent lubricate to get rid of some friction and reduce noise. Rinse and repeat for as many stabilizers as you’d like.

If your thinking that this is tedious and time-consuming…you’d be correct! in all actuality, though, I managed to get all of the stabilizers in the above picture is done in about 30 mins which wasn’t too bad considering that this is my first foray. I was skeptical that this could make a noticeable difference after the effort that was required…but boy was I wrong.

Instead of telling you, let me show you. In the below video, the space bar was lubed with the steps above and the enter key stabilizers were left stock.

I was blown away by how much of a difference this actually makes. If I could make a comparison, it’s similar to using a 60hz display for many years, switching to a high refresh rate such as 120hz, and then going back to 60hz. Once you noticed what you were missing, you may never want to go back.

You could take this even further and perform what’s called a “band-aid” mod which essentially, attempts to dampen the sound even more by reducing the sound of bottoming out of the stabilizer with the bottom of the PCB.

Another extra that many do is to actually disassemble each key switch and apply more lubricate to achieve even more smoothness and reduction in noise. This is a rite of passage apparently for any custom build in the keyboard community so I was pumped to give this a shot.

However, in my case though, I learned that it’s recommended that you avoid this with kailh box switches(which my burnt oranges are) as they’re prone to leaking which could damage the pcb. They are also extremely difficult to open compared to cherry and other clones I also read. This could just be hearsay but since I was satisfied with how they sounded unlubed, I decided that lubing switches will have to wait for another custom build I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Section 4d: Flashing the firmware

One step that I didn’t mention back when I got all the components, is that it's good practice to test your components before you start building. That means for the PCB, making sure that it’s not faulty and the keystrokes register. Very simple to do luckily, I just grabbed a pair of tweezers to short out the pin where a key switch would. This would be similar to soldering in a switch and testing that way but this is way quicker. I remembered to do this but didn’t check all the aspects of the functionally when I did.

much glow..such light…wow

I’m glad I decided to test this again because after googling “keyboard tester” and giving this a second test, I noticed that where I wanted my right shift key was actually being picked up as the up arrow. Little problematic but thankfully, the dz60 is easy to configure thanks to its use of QMK firmware.

Like the stabilizers, I’m not going to go into much detail with this but essentially, I just had to follow the steps from this video from MechMerlin and I was ready to roll.

Section 4e: Modifying the top shell

Alright, now that everything appears to line up correctly and working as intended, I wanted to switch my attention back to milling out the top section of the case so the left and right modifier keys could sit snuggly.

As I mentioned above during the beginning of this section (and the above photo shows), some modifications to the top shell of the case had to be made to make room for the modifier keys. Only a very small amount had to be removed which hopefully won’t be too obvious. I would rather have the case unmodified, but I guess this is the compromise I had to make since I didn’t have a custom PCB for this case. The original plan was to have my dad help since he has a machine shop but covid-19 had different plans so it was on to plan B which involved just using a Dremel.

I first started off my marking how far into the top shell the modifier keys protruded.

From there, it was as simple as using the Dremel to carve out the areas that I marked, making sure to pay close attention to not over cut.

I’m happy (for the most part. More on that in a second) how this turned out given that I was doing this by hand and not a machine as I wanted. I did make a mistake on the left-hand side, however. I managed to get the cuts no problem but trying to get the corners to be rounded enough required a smaller Dremel tool that I didn’t have.

As a result of my impatience, I decided to try and attack these small corners with too big of a sanding head and as a result, dug into the bottom of the case right above the apple logo. I had to sand down the rest of that section to make it level and not obvious that I made a mistake. If you compare the left side vs. the right (underneath the shifts keys) there is a little bit of a size discrepancy with the gaps. I could live with this mistake though as it could easily be fixed with some Bondo or putty. Let this be a lesson kids…make sure you have the right tools for the job.

From there, I just finished off the sides with some files (which I ordered immediately after encountering the mistake I just listed above) to finish the final touches.

little bodywork to the case with some sculpting clay

Section 4f: Wiring and Soldering

Pheww…this has been quite the section but I wanted to break it down since there was so much to do. All that’s left now is to solder the switches plan how to connect the keyboard to the computer.

I first tackled the problem of having the little extension cable hook up from the pcb to the outside of the case. Once again, I opened up fusion 360 and quickly mocked up a little plug that would fit where the original telephone cable would have plugged into. You can find that here.

mockup in fusion 360

success!

top view

interior shot

I was very happy with how this turned out. With other parts I created, some glue was needed to keep it in place. For this, however, I was able to design it so it could be pressure fitted with no additional gluing needed. You’ll notice that in the third picture, the housing for the female portion of the extender cable was a little too fat so I had to take a Dremel to it so it could fit in the slot. Since you wouldn’t see this, it didn’t bother me.

Alright with that problem solved, all that was left to do was to hook up the extender plug to the mainboard and see how everything fit together.

everyone together now!

I routed the cable up through one of the slots in the mounting frame and hooked it up to the pcb. I wish I could say I knew the dimensions of the cable connector head before I ordered it but I didn’t. This was straight luck that it fits as snuggly as it does (seriously, with only a couple mm to spare). I couldn’t be happier that everything is coming together. All that was left to do is to solder everything up and do an initial typing test.