#transcript #youtube #touch-id #magic-keyboard #snazzy-labs > Auto-generated YouTube captions, lightly paragraphed into ~30 s chunks by `ytkx`. Product names and jargon are mangled in places — read it as a search index, not as a quotation source. Distilled build notes live in [[Standalone Touch ID Module for Mac]]. Source: Snazzy Labs — I Made a Tiny Touch ID Button for Mac! (2022-11-18, 16:52) --- # I Made a Tiny Touch ID Button for Mac! Channel: Snazzy Labs · uploaded 2022-11-18 · 16:52 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz9Ek6fxX48 ## Description Ever wanted Touch ID without having to use the Magic Keyboard? Now you can! Purchase Nreal Air on Amazon (sponsored) - https://amzn.to/3T1Sqn0 *** Print my models or remix your own! - https://www.printables.com/model/320000 *** 3D Printer recommendations: Creality Ender-3 (ultra-budget) - https://amzn.to/3ggDVOP ANYCUBIC Kobra (budget) - https://amzn.to/3hYVwvq Creality Ender-3 S1 Pro (recommended) - https://amzn.to/3UNt8ut Prusa MK3S+ (high-end, but fun to build!) - https://www.prusa3d.com/category/original-prusa-i3-mk3s/ * Follow Snazzy Labs on Twitter - http://twitter.com/snazzyq Follow me on Instagram - http://instagram.com/snazzyq Snazzy Labs Ethics Statement - https://snazzylabs.com/ethics/ #DIY #Mac #3Dprinting ## Chapters (none) ## Transcript **[0:00](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=0)** biometric Touch ID has been a great feature on Apple's laptops for years I believe it was introduced in 2016. but it only works when the laptop is open if it's in clamshell mode or if you find yourself using a desktop mac Apple sells several of those up until very recently you've been out of luck now can auto unlock and also approve password requests on your Mac with an Apple Watch and actually it was worked quite well but not everyone owns or finds themselves wearing an Apple Watch at all times like they do their fingers table saw operators excluded so Apple's **[0:33](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=33)** answer was this the magic keyboard with Touch ID released last year and it's actually great that is if you're a lad or Lassie that enjoys Apple's desktop keyboards but surprise surprise many people are not fans of this keyboard and I'm amongst them and while I certainly appreciate the inventiveness of my peers that are velcro in this keyboard to the bottom of their desk and using software to disable key input I wanted to make a dedicated Touch ID module one that could look good and fit into a small footprint but most importantly one that finds **[1:07](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=67)** itself close to where my hands actually are my keyboard so that I don't have to reach under and Hunt around for this touch ID key I don't really want this I want something like this and so we need a touch ID sensor which means unfortunately a magic keyboard with Touch ID this is the only place we can Harvest them from and because these are new they're still relatively expensive I did get mine for a hundred bucks which is 50 off retail from someone on Craigslist that didn't need theirs and got it with an iMac luckily **[1:41](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=101)** these are notoriously unreliable so in short order we will see a flood of these hit the market with crumbs and Spills and broken keys and that's fine that doesn't matter because all we need is the logic board the battery and the touch ID sensor or at least in theory I don't know I haven't taken one apart yet oh brand new and we're gonna Harvest its guts unfortunately but such is the way these things work as you might suspect there are no no screws under here there's no way to get **[2:13](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=133)** under here other than to just look at this these might even be like molded on there we go there's our Inn there is a hole there but there's no screws so we're going to need to heat up the adhesive on the back of this panel to get in and we're going to do that with this thing basically we touch this button and it gets Mighty toasty Mighty quickly oh my gosh this is getting so warm it is bowing isn't it look at that it's saying please stop wow look at that **[2:47](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=167)** it's not straight anymore oh oh mama beautiful elegant graceful glue isn't it great oh my goodness easy it's injected molded plastic for rigidity we've got our battery connector presumably right there see if we can uh **[3:21](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=201)** pull this up first there you go look at that yeah no problem oh man there are a lot of these like so many like why'd you put all of these in and then decide to glue it together there we go there are plastic snaps though on top of that oh look at that I was like oh no I destroyed the battery nope your battery's on the back of this and look at this there's a little pull tab we do want to use this battery if we can I plan on **[3:53](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=233)** using this wired I would like to make a wireless option available spicy pillows are bad we don't want any spicy pillows so we're just going to keep working this it's way down without puncturing the battery there we go wow look at how thin this is look at it that's so thin this is a 793 milliamp hours wow okay here's the good stuff and interesting **[4:30](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=270)** [Music] then the one you find in the regular smaller Apple keyboard that one is a little more square and not quite as elongated which for our purposes would be better but this is what we have so maybe I'll have to take apart a small one too shall we [Music] now we've got to remove the one two **[5:10](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=310)** three connectors one goes to the touch ID sensor itself that's on the back of this board the battery one we've already removed this appears to be to the lightning connector by which you charge the case and then we've got this big zip connector for the entire presumably keyboard and here is our logic port it's very thin it's extremely flexible look at that you don't want to break that and then we've got our Touch ID sensor right here and our lightning connector **[5:44](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=344)** there it is our lightning connector the last thing remaining other than well the entire keyboard is the touch ID sensor now this is held in by four T3 screws you can actually see the key switch mechanism work if you push on the back of the board which is pretty funny so let's undo these perimeter screws and in theory it should come right out drops all the way through and in fact it looks like I could entirely remove this key fascia **[6:18](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=378)** yeah look at this not sure I want to do this but you can there we have it now we have a bear touch ID sensor you can touch the top for fingerprint recognition and then at the back you've still got that little button and as long as something is there on the back of it to depress it it registers a button press speaking of buttons use the button on your mouse to click through to today's sponsor and reel the unreal air is a pair of lightweight high resolution micro display OLED panels inside of an AR glasses frame and they've got a **[6:52](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=412)** public beta of their nebula app for Mac which allows you to virtualize up to three displays without actually having to have anything on your desk being able to see through the glasses through the screens when needed keeps you in the real world unlike VR and the pixels per degree value is triple that of leading VR headsets so the text is razor sharp this means you can actually be productive and increase your productivity on a plane or in a small office or anywhere you can't have multiple screens it also works with iPhone and Android as the perfect **[7:24](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=444)** theater experience put on a blackout cover and enjoy a display that seems like it's theater sized with an infinite contrast ratio thanks to those OLED panels extremely luminous highlights and shockingly good comfort and when you're done watching in your movies plug it into your valve steam deck and play games on a larger higher quality screen that uses less energy than the display built into your steam deck if you want to learn more what the unreal air can do for you check out this recent video we did on them and then use the link in the video description to purchase them for yourself or as the perfect holiday gift **[7:58](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=478)** for the techie in your life okay so one thing I didn't test before pulling this whole thing apart was does this even work without a keyboard attached to it I don't know I've never actually even programmed this to a computer before it's never been plugged in so let's try it it does say keyboard battery level zero percent that's funny all right now if we go into Touch ID I have to enroll a fingerprint right so if I push add fingerprint let's see if this even works ready **[8:31](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=511)** it does okay so it does appear to be unrolling my fingerprint keep going okay it's hard to do when the fingerprint reader sticks to your finger okay now I can push done and now it's enabled so let's go to the lock screen and then theoretically I should be able to just touch this I don't even have to push the button down and it ah it works okay so I can do it on both I can do it high here or turn off good I can do it right here **[9:05](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=545)** that's awesome okay now that we've gotten all of our pieces removed from our keyboard it is time to make our 3D model all of these pieces are square so why don't we start with a square or maybe we can start with a spell abracadabra alakazam wow 3D modeling is so easy it only took me a whole week to make this part okay this is actually the first 3D model I have ever made you can see all of my failed attempts revisions and improvements over here on the right it took a lot of printing a lot of trial and error but I finally gotten a part **[9:38](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=578)** that I'm pretty happy with and a lot of that is thanks to the software that I'm using shaper 3D which was super easy for me A total beginner that again has never modeled anything let me show you how shaper 3D works I'm going to go into the sketch panel here with my apple pencil and I can either create a line or an arc an arc is a circle so let's make a circle here and then we are going to notice that there's been a 2d object created on this infinite plane I can tap this 2D object and if I drag it in One Direction or the other it creates a 3D model this is a **[10:12](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=612)** little cylinder I can pan around it I can see how tall it is 57 millimeters if I wanted to make it I don't know 60 there you go it gets a little bit taller I can choose the radius of the circle I can choose if it's tilted or slanted or what have you and then once I'm happy with my shape I go wow okay but what if I want to make a hole out of this shape or make it a different size well all I have to do is double tap on it and I enter another 2D plane I can then make my new shape let's make a an arc well let's make a little like I don't know how about this and then we draw a little **[10:45](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=645)** yeah there we go okay sure that looks like a thing I I want to take out of my part we can see again that this is another 2D part that's in 3D space so if I tap this I can drag it in One Direction which would create additive manufacturing it's a new piece of our model or I can drag it in the other direction and you'll see that it's subtractive I am taking apart away from the cylinder that I just created in the shape that I modeled and that's really all there is to 3D modeling it's additive it's subtractive and that's pretty much it now I can go in here and **[11:16](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=676)** fine tune this let's tap this Edge let's say I want to give it a little bit of a bevel there you go that's nicer let's say I want to give it a little bit of an aggressive cut I can do that too the world is really your oyster but that's really all it is it's it's very very simple add subtract chamfer and fillet and with you know a lot of trial and error and a lot of chamfering and filleting and adding and subtracting I got this part and I want to show this to you because it's it's pretty simple so I've got my 3D fingerprint sensor that goes right here as you can see there is a cable that extends out and so I wanted to create a little cavity inside my part **[11:51](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=711)** so that it wasn't getting smashed by the board above it then we have these two little plateaus this is where the board sits upon I use digital calipers to measure the location of these screw holes on the board relative to my case and then with you know a little bit of trial and error I put them in the correct position and using what are called threaded heated inserts where I can take my soldering iron I place it inside the cavity on that brass insert which heats the brass up which then heats the surrounding plastic and the **[12:24](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=744)** brass sinks into the plastic and then as it cools it solidifies with the plastic around it meaning that I can put in a very fine Threaded Screw and it's not going anywhere it's extremely strong so I'm using M2 machine screws to hold my motherboard into the case which works really really well I did have a problem with the lightning Port however this is a very very very small part and fitting a screw or a thread insert it just wasn't going to happen it wasn't working well and so I decided to do what I hate manufacturers doing but I can do it again and again again because I've got a **[12:57](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=777)** 3D printer and that is create a plastic weld plastic welds are in short a barbarian plastic post that you heat up and make really really really hot and you purposely deform it to the point where as it cools down it grabs onto whatever it is surrounding so I have two posts that go through each side of the connector I heat them up and that holds the lightning connector in place very very well and then for my cover I just created a little one millimeter channel that I'm able to slip a back cover on too the end result is something that is completely enclosed really quite elegant **[13:31](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=811)** and does everything I need it to do now there is one Omission I made very early on here is my original model you can see that I have a little bit of a tee a little cross here because I wanted to retain the clicking functionality of the original keycap I quickly abandoned that because I discovered that well I probably wasn't just good enough of a 3D modeler but I think anyone would maybe struggle with it getting stability such that I could get a replicable nice feeling key press so I ditched the keycap all together I got rid of the button functionality because it doesn't do anything that you can't do with your mouse or your keyboard anyway and I left **[14:05](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=845)** the bare sensor in this tiny little cavity I think it looks better I think it's very very easy I've just glued the thing in place so I don't have to worry about it moving up and down this is a solid piece of non-moving plastic and electronic guts and I think it works really really well I decided to make three different models the logic board on the 10 keyless version is quite small and petite and so for me who plans to use this wired because the rest of my peripherals are wired I wanted it to be as small as I possibly could get it and because the battery is frankly not that small but for those that I knew would **[14:38](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=878)** want to use this Wireless I made a longer Wireless version as well now on the full size 109 key version the motherboard actually exceeds the length of the battery and so rather than make a wired and wireless version I just made one version for both models frankly I think this is going to be much less common in sight and practice than the 10 keyless version because this is the one that comes with the iMac for free the other one you have to pay to upgrade and so you'll probably see more of these shorter boards with our models created it's time to finally print them and I did so using my largest and most **[15:11](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=911)** expensive printer my voron 2.4 R2 that I built from scratch and it took forever but it's finally making really nice Sprints and my least expensive smallest printer the prusa mini the reality is is that this is not a part that's going to be subjected to lots of heat or UV nor will it be subjected to stress or torsion so kind of just get crazy with it print it in whatever material or plastic you want we printed it in a lot of different variations and we've had a lot of fun with making these things look great and they do function great it's very dependable it's very replicable I'm **[15:46](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=946)** really really pleased with the way this is is turned out if you don't have a 3D printer you can use a service to print parts for you online but printers are becoming so good and so inexpensive that it's probably time to take the plunge I've linked some of my favorite inexpensive printers down below but look at these end results ah I just love it they look fantastic I'm super pleased with the way this turned out but I also I'm a really amateur modeler this is really the first thing I've ever made and so I know that our Tech Community can certainly one-up my design go to printables and remix **[16:20](https://youtu.be/hz9Ek6fxX48?t=980)** this design I would love to see what you can do with it and then show me in the make section pictures of your finished print if you decide to do this mod thank you so much for watching and as always stay snazzy [Music] foreign [Music]