Touch ID Mount - Balolo

Overview

This is an enclosure mount used to attach a Touch ID sensor and PCB extracted from an Apple Magic Keyboard to the Balolo Setup Cockpit desk shelf.

⚠ This design is made for PCBs extracted from a Magic Keyboard without numpad and with a lightning connector. I don't know if a PCB with a USB-C connector will fit as well.

I wanted to meet the following requirements with this design:

• It should fit in with existing Balolo accessories
  • This is similar to my Apple Watch mount
• Relatively easy to print
• No extra screws or glue required
• Robustness. Once assembled, the fragile cable and parts should be contained inside the enclosure such that you can handle it without worrying about breaking things.

Prerequisites

First you need to extract the Touch ID sensor and PCB from an Apple Magic Keyboard. This is a whole thing and will cost you at least one Magic Keyboard. Study how to do this and do it carefully, since there is a lithium ion battery inside the keyboard. This design will only work with the smaller keyboard without a numpad because the numpad model has a much larger PCB.

You can see this done here:

Here are the parts you should have afterwards:

Printing

The mount consists of three parts:

• Main body
• Cap that covers the Touch ID sensor
• Lid that covers the  PCB

Only the main body requires supports. There is a tunnel inside it, so make sure to enable supports on build plate only to avoid filling the tunnel with supports you can't remove.

Assembly

Feed the cable through the tunnel in the main body

Push the PCB connector end of the Touch ID cable through the tunnel. In order to reduce the width of the cable, fold over the wide part near the connector.

Fold and crease the cable

The Touch ID cable will need to bend 90° in order to reach the connector on the PCB. Fold over the cable and make a crease. This will make the cable fall into place easier when the PCB is added on top.

Snap on the sensor cap

Put the Touch ID sensor in place on the main body such that its “legs” go into the 4 holes.  Make sure the cable doesn't have any slack coming out of the tunnel on the Touch ID side.

Align the sensor cap and push it down to snap it into place. Make sure the white circle of the sensor aligns perfectly with the hole in the cap before committing to the snap.

Insert the PCB

1. Connect the connector on the other side of the cable to the PCB.
2. Push the lightning connector down into the slot on the back edge. It should be oriented such that the cable is coming out of the bottom of the connector.
3. Push the PCB down into the enclosure. Let the lightning connector fold into an “S shape” and the Touch ID cable fold into the crease you made previously. The PCB will “squish” the cables underneath it and hold them in place.

Slide on the PCB lid

Slide the lid over the PCB to close the enclosure. Since it's a tight fit, be careful not to knock any parts on the PCB with the lid. It helps to push the PCB down a little while doing this.

Usage

• Plug a lightning cable into the lightning connector. Your Mac will recognize it a Magic Keyboard with Touch ID.
• Attach the enclosure to your Balolo shelf with a single M5 screw like any other Balolo accessory.
• Touch it with your finger!