Custom Keyboard Base

For a long time, I wanted to change my keyboard but I couldn't find one I did like, then, thanks to Frank Adam's instructable, I was able to convert a laptop's keyboard I did like into a USB keyboard to connect to my PC.

Once I had the keyboard working, I had to build a base to hold it, and here is where my experience as CNC programmer helped.

To build my base I used an industrial CNC machine, the one I program at my working place. That machine is huge and built to work with stones. I understand that it is something people doesn't have at home and one can't easily have access to that, but smaller ones exist and anyway you don't need to make a marble stone base as I did, maybe for your purpose a wooden one is what you want and any 3-axis CNC router can do the job as far as the base size fits the CNC working area.

The things to take into consideration are the keyboard's size, the screw mounts and cables size and position. To take the keyboard's width, height and thickness (keys excluded) I suggest you use a caliper. The keyboard's width could be a problem to be taken using a caliper since common calipers do not measure such wide objects, I used a meterstick paying attention to start measuring not from 0 but from 1, because of the possible wearing of the extremity of the first stick.

Laptops keyboards have a soft back, when you measure the thickness, do not tighten the caliper, get the max thickness because you will not push the keyboard on the base once finished.

About the measurements taken, keep the width and height precise, instead consider an additional 2mm for the thickness, we will see later the reason.

In addition to the keyboard's height, you will also have to take into consideration to have a place where to rest your wrists, the base will be thick and uncomfortable to use without it. This measure could be different if you have big or small hands, about 8cm should be fine but try to understand what's best for you.

Now there are two possibilities depending on the material you are working with.

If you use a heavy material like mine, you will want to lighten the base as much as you can, in the end, it will still be heavy enough to be still on the desk. To make the base lighter I did cut other slots in addition to those needed to let the cables pass from the top to the bottom of the base where the electronic circuit is positioned. I also removed the material under the place where you rest your wrists.

On the other end, if you are using a light material like wood, you will probably want the opposite, because by removing too much material the base will become too light.

We will start from the top side, where most of the job will be done.

Here I started to make room for the keyboard using at first a tool with a large diameter (20mm) to have the job done faster, then I used a thinner tool (10mm) to cut the slots, and finally, an even thinner tool (6mm) for the corners.

I asked you to consider an additional 2mm for the thickness, that was because now you have sharp edges around the hole where you will put the keyboard, I made a 2mm chamfer there, and in this way, the keyboard is at the same level with the chamfer.

The last thing was to cut the perimeter of the base from the marble slab.

To the bottom of the base, all you need to do is to make room only for the electronic circuit and the keyboard's cables if you are working with a light material and want to keep the base heavy, or you will also have to remove other material to make the base lighter.

If you are using a fragile material and need to remove a lot of it, my recommendation is to make the back upper dig higher than the front one (as you can see from my CAD drawing above) and to start the tool's path from the bottom left corner. In this way when the tool goes down it will find the resistance of the full thickness of the material which lays on the working plan and it will not break throught he bottom.

Here there is at least one other cut to make, the one for the USB cable. I made an additional one for a USB port because I connected a USB hub to the microcontroller and I use that port to connect an external mouse or a USB external drive.

I have to admit that when I started this project I thought only to use the slots for the keyboard's flat cables and to lighten the base, but while connecting the circuit, I found them useful also to hold the USB hub's ports which I didn't have to expose to the outside. To keep the keyboard in place I used double-sided tape.

I hope that my experience will help you to build your keyboard base.