About a month ago, [50an6xy06r6n] shared their hot swap 3D-printed circuit board for keyboard design with the mechanical keyboard subreddit. It’s more of a prototyping tool than a permanent fixture, though nothing is stopping you from using it permanently. Well, now it’s even better, and open source to boot.

[50an6xy06r6n] came up with this to test split ergo layouts faster and not have to solder anything — the switch pins make contact with the row wires and folded diode legs. In fact, prepping all the diodes is probably the thing that takes the longest.

The design can be generated from layout data, or you can convert directly from a KLE JSON file. We love how delightfully clean this keyboard breadboard generator looks, and we wish we had thought of it!

[50an6xy06r6n]’s PCB generator currently supports Cherry MX/clones and Kailh Choc switch footprints. If you want ALPS, somebody’s gonna have to send [50an6xy06r6n] some ALPS to make that happen.

As long as all the contact points are good, you should be able to use this as the final PCB indefinitely. We’ve certainly seen our share of 3D-printed wire guides. Really, you could print the whole thing, including the switches.