Has anyone thought of fitting a SBC within a keyboard ?

[cendrounet]

I am currently in the process of designing a keyboard (custom layout + laser-cut metal + handwiring), and I was thinking of inserting a raspberry pie 0 inside the keyboard, and use it with retropie, and then be able to use my keyboard as controller.
Which would require a ON/OFF switch for the pie, and a way to redirect the output of the keyboard either to the external USB, or to the pie0 USB.

Has anyone done this before ? Should I worry about my keyboard heating, or any problem I might encounter maybe ?

And then I figured, maybe I can fit a larger thing, as a Banana Pi BPI-M2 Ultra, which has the spec to use the IDE I use (the software I use for work), and then I could just work with a screen and my keyboard.

Any thoughts on those ideas ?

[kolec94]

the keyboard part would be simple but a pi 0 require power from either a battery or from the wall
the keyboard usb switch part would be simple enough
the banana pi would make it particularly thick
banana pi zero or orange pi zero would work nicely
orange pi zero with the usb port removed and the keyboard directly wired in
for the usb switch a dpdt on the data lines should work fine or u can get a maxim chip to do it

[cendrounet]

Yeah, If I put a computer in it, I will let 3 things out of the keyboard : a mini sd reader, a hdmi port and an alim. Desoldered from the board, so that I can put them nicely.

Any idea on how much space I should let around it ?

[senso]

Given that you have a metal case, mount the pi/other SBC up-side-down with a 2-3mm thick thermal pad and use the case as an heatsink.

[jdcarpe]

https://sneek.co/blog/project-kiiboard/

[Phenix]

is using a usb hub with on/off switches a vivid idea?
else I would look into a two-setting-switch which accepts four wires in total (so that A and B position can be used as USB A or B)

[cendrounet]

is using a usb hub with on/off switches a vivid idea?
else I would look into a two-setting-switch which accepts four wires in total (so that A and B position can be used as USB A or B)

I would love to have a kind of mechanical switcher, e.g. when you plug, it pushes the connector toward the other setting, and when you unplug some spring / whatever pushes back the connector, but yeah for now I suspect I will use a traditionnal on/off thing because I already have too much ideas that will do me a hard time.