DIY maker builds PC-in-a-keyboard with Raspberry Pi 5

Raspberry launched the Pi 400 nearly four years ago. At the core, it's a PC-in-a-keyboard powered by the Raspberry Pi 4 with 4 GB of RAM. It positioned itself as an affordable PC that's packed into a compact keyboard, ideal for space-limited setups.

Even though Pi 5 has been in the market for a while, the company has yet to release a successor to the Pi 400. So, a maker named Arnov Sharma decided to make his own, but he didn't name it the Pi 500. Instead, the maker calls it the Raspberry Pi 1000.

Just like the Pi 400, the DIY Raspberry Pi 1000 is a PC-in-a-keyboard, but instead of being powered by the Pi 4, it packs the Raspberry Pi 5. The project started with a regular membrane keyboard, in which Arnov Sharma installed a 3D-printed backing plate, securing the membrane layers to the custom enclosure.

To get the best possible performance out of the Raspberry Pi 5, the maker has added a cooling fan inside the custom enclosure. The custom system also relies on the official Raspberry Pi M.2 Hat, which holds a 128 GB NVMe SSD (2 TB Samsung 990 Pro curr. $169.99 on Amazon). These additions make the custom Pi 1000 boot in just 6 seconds and capable of smoothly handling games like Minecraft and

There are other custom-designed parts in this DIY project, which Arnov Sharma has detailed in his documentation found at hackster.io. It even shares the CAD files, code for the Xiao SAMD21 microcontroller used, and parts list. If you want to see this custom Raspberry Pi 5 project in action, check out Sharma's YouTube video attached below.