How to Make A Simple DIY Loupedeck or StreamDeck Alternative

As creatives are tasked with increasing workloads, accessories to speed up their workflows become more valuable. While editing consoles can be incredibly useful, they can also be incredibly expensive, which is why YouTuber “Pedro” from DSLR DIY CNC shared how you can build your own custom “InfiniteDeck” for only about $50.

Control decks for Photoshop and Lightroom like Loupedeck, Monogram, and Tourbox are hugely popular, but they’re far from cheap, especially as they become more customizable and advanced.

As photography and videography are expensive hobbies and professions on their own, Pedro, as an engineer, felt compelled to develop a solution (or alternative) to some of the existing commercial products. In his 11-minute video, he describes the entire process of building your own custom editing console, which he affectionately calls “InfiniteDeck”.

“I’m an electrical engineer who enjoys multiple hobbies,” says Pedro. “This makes me a do-it-yourselfer alongside my regular job. As I listened to the creative community, I wanted to share the things I do in hopes of helping others do more while saving a little money. I would like to develop new solutions or alternatives to commercial products with the same features or, if possible, release a project with more features than the commercial versions.”

Pedro continues, “I’m just starting to work on projects and I’m hoping to release more often and try to find the easiest solutions for viewers. For example, while you can buy many macro pads or find tutorials on how to make them, most of them are quite complex and require far greater skill from building to programming. I found the Makerfabs development board to be a simple solution instead of having to solder lots of wires. The code I wrote was also made to work with Ducky Script. That way, someone doesn’t have to learn programming to create the macro actions, and they don’t have to reprogram the board every time they change the button actions.

No complex wiring, soldering, or complicated programming is required for the entire process, Pedro says. The main processor of the device uses a simple microSD card that allows users to create new and updated profiles to expand the possibilities that other manufactured solutions do not have.

According to the video, the device doesn’t need complex drivers because it emulates a simple keyboard when connected to a computer. Users can store any keyboard combination of application “shortcuts” on the microSD card, just using a text editor like notepad and freeware or an online editor to create the icons to be displayed on the device, making it incredibly budget-friendly and useful for Editors and streamers makes , videographers, photographers, digital artists and designers.

For detailed installation instructions and related links, see the DSLR DIY CNC video description. After purchasing the MakerFabs touchscreen, the console is very quick and easy to create and customize to speed up any creative collaborator’s workflow.

To see more from Pedro you can visit his YouTube channel and Instagram.