2024-06-06 | By Pimoroni

License: See Original Project Raspberry Pi

Courtesy of Pimoroni

Guide by Pimoroni

This tutorial will help you assemble your 8" or 10" Picade, 2020 edition with PICO-8. It ‎will also show you how to install Retropie and our Picade HAT software.‎

Checking Your Picade Version

Take a look at your Picade box. If you have a square PICO-8 sticker on the ‎box, you're in the right place! If the box doesn't have a PICO-8 sticker, you ‎should follow this tutorial instead.

You can also identify a 2020 Picade from the console and marquee artwork - ‎the new art has curvy lines and older versions have straight ones.‎

The 2020 edition contains lots of little, incremental updates that will hopefully ‎make putting your Picade together a little easier, as well as some nifty ‎updated art and a code to install PICO-8, which will let you make your own ‎tiny games.‎

What You'll Need

• A 8" or 10" Picade with PICO-8!‎

You'll also need the following:‎

• A 5V 3A USB-C power supply like this universal one or the official ‎Raspberry Pi one (if you go for the official one, make sure you pick the ‎correct power supply for your region)‎
• A Raspberry Pi 4 - any of them will run Retropie or PICO-8 very happily. ‎If you want to use an older Pi with this kit that's also possible (as long ‎as it's one of the ones with a 40-pin header), but you'll need to pick up a ‎USB-C power supply to plug it in
• A microSD card
• A USB keyboard for installing the software (you'll only need this while ‎you're setting up your Picade, so you could borrow one temporarily ‎from another computer)‎

Preparation

It'll take two to three hours to build your Picade. A large space, like a table or ‎floor, with a soft covering is an ideal build space. Some parts are fiddly, so it ‎helps to have an extra, friendly, pair of hands on standby. You’ll need a ‎Phillips screwdriver (or, if you're fancy, a Wowstick).‎

In the box, you'll find a poster, a cheat sheet for PICO-8 (with your redemption ‎code printed at the bottom), an envelope full of our best stickers and four ‎smaller boxes that contain the CABINET, FIXINGS, SCREEN, and ‎ACCESSORIES (you'll find the cabinet box underneath the other three!).‎

Here's a complete list of everything that's inside each box! If you're missing ‎anything, drop us an email at support@pimoroni.com.‎

CABINET BOX

• ‎6 powder coated wooden cabinet panels (marked A-F)‎
• Large square acrylic screen panel
• Printed cardboard screen surround
• Marquee assembly (comprising of two long acrylic pieces, and a ‎‎'PICADE' printed cardboard insert)‎
• Console assembly (comprising of a wooden panel with holes for ‎buttons, a matching acrylic piece, and a printed cardboard insert)‎

SCREEN BOX

• ‎8" or 10" LCD screen panel‎
• ‎4 laser cut acrylic pieces for mounting the screen (marked 'Top 1' and ‎‎'Top 2' and 'Base 1' and 'Base 2')‎
• Screen driver board
• Screen keypad
• Long, thin ribbon cable for attaching driver board to keypad
• Short, wide ribbon cable for attaching driver board to screen (10" ‎Picade only)
• ‎4 metal M2.5 flat headed flange bolts for attaching driver board to ‎screen assembly

ACCESSORIES BOX

• Speaker
• Joystick
• Joystick ball
• Black plastic collar/dust cover for joystick
• Illuminated power button
• ‎10 arcade buttons (4 black, 2 blue, 2 yellow, and 2 pink)‎

FIXINGS BOX

• Picade X HAT
• ‎9 plastic brackets (for attaching the panels together)‎
• ‎4 rubber feet‎
• ‎2 rubber O rings‎
• HDMI cable
• HDMI to micro-HDMI adaptor
• USB micro-B cable (for powering the screen)‎
• Two Dupont to spade connector wiring looms (for plugging in the ‎buttons)‎
• Joystick cable
• Red and black power cable (for plugging in the power button)‎
• Big bag of metal M3 nuts and bolts (31 of each are needed to complete ‎the build)‎
• Medium sized bag containing nylon M2.5 nuts, bolts, and spacers (you ‎will need 6 bolts, 10 nuts, and 4 spacers)
• Two small bags containing metal M2.5 standoffs and small M2.5 bolts ‎‎(you will need 4 bolts and 4 standoffs)
• And a stylish pin badge!‎

Beginning Cabinet Assembly

MOUNTING YOUR RASPBERRY PI TO THE BASE

To start, you'll need to find the square black wooden panel marked A in the ‎CABINET box - this will become the base of your Picade. You'll also need ‎your Raspberry Pi, and the M2.5 bolts, nuts, spacers, and standoffs from the ‎FIXINGS box. The nuts and bolts are the ones that look like this:‎

The wooden panels are laser cut by us and then powder coated by a friendly, ‎local Sheffield company. This process can result in some textural variation on ‎the back of the panels, and you might also notice some holes on the back ‎that don't go all the way through - these holes are where the panels are hung ‎up to be powder coated. There should be an obvious good side and a 'label' ‎side with markings and text on. The label side will always be on the inside of ‎your Picade, so any patchiness on this side won't show once your Picade is ‎assembled.‎

To mount the Pi to the base, turn the base panel label side up, and push four ‎nylon M2.5 bolts through the four holes near the rectangular cutout, from the ‎bottom. The threads of the bolts should be pointing towards you.‎

Place the white plastic spacers on top of each bolt, then place your Pi onto ‎the bolts, with the Pi's SD card slot over the rectangular cutout. Screw the ‎four metal standoffs onto the bolts, securing your Pi to the base. If you're ‎having trouble with the bolts falling out of the holes before you have the ‎chance to tighten them up, a piece of Blu-Tack over the head of each bolt can ‎help to keep them in place while you fit the spacers, Pi, and standoffs, and ‎can simply be removed afterwards.

‎

MOUNTING THE PICADE X HAT

Next, find the Picade X HAT and remove it from its bag. Push the Picade X ‎HAT onto the Pi's GPIO pins, ensuring that the pins are correctly lined up and ‎the holes line up with the standoffs.‎

Use four of the smaller metal M2.5 screws to secure the HAT to the ‎standoffs.‎

ATTACHING THE FEET

Peel off the backing from the four rubber feet and stick them on the good ‎side of the base, close to the corners. The tabs on the edges of the base will ‎need to fit into slots later on, so make sure the feet aren't positioned right at ‎the edges.‎

ATTACHING THE BRACKETS TO THE BASE

Now you'll need the big bag of M3 nuts and bolts, and the black plastic ‎brackets from the FIXINGS box. You'll use lots of these nuts and bolts for ‎fixing the cabinet together, and you'll want to always have them so that the ‎heads of the bolts are on the outside and the nuts are on the inside of the ‎cabinet (the side with the text labels on).‎

Attach five plastic corner brackets to the rectangles marked on the base ‎‎(panel A), using five M3 bolts and nuts. You'll want to put the bolt through the ‎round, centre hole on the bracket - the round holes in the brackets can be a ‎bit tight so you might need to apply a bit of pressure to get the screw thread ‎to first engage.‎

ATTACHING THE SPEAKER

Place the speaker on the label side of panel A, with the paper cone against ‎the cutouts and the wire pointing towards the edge of the Picade. Secure it ‎with M3 screws, pushed through from the good side, and M3 nuts. The paper ‎cone of the speaker is delicate, so take care not to accidentally damage it.

The speaker wires connect to the push fit connector on Picade X HAT, ‎marked SPEAKER, red to + and black to -. This is a bit of a fiddly connector, ‎so if you've not come across one before it's worth taking a look at how it ‎works before you begin attaching the wires. Look down the barrel of the ‎connector whilst using a small screwdriver to gently press on the round ‎indentation on each connector - you'll see the little iris open up inside the ‎connector, this is the part that grips on to the cable.‎

Attach the wires, one at a time, by gently pressing on one of the indentations ‎to open up the connector whilst at the same time pushing the speaker wire in ‎from the side. It might help to separate the wires a little first. Don't press ‎down too hard - it's possible to break the clips if you do. If the wire won't go in, ‎release the pressure and check that you're inserting the wire straight (it might ‎be helpful to grip the wires with tweezers or pliers as you feed them in). Once ‎it's attached correctly, the wires should be gripped tightly in the speaker ‎terminals.‎

ATTACHING THE SIDES AND FRONT

Locate side wooden cabinet panel B and attach it to the two brackets on the ‎side of the base closest to the speaker grill with the labels inside, using two ‎more M3 nuts and bolts pushed through from the outside. Attach the other ‎side panel, panel D to the opposite side of the base in the same way.

The front panel is cabinet panel E, and it slots between the short edges of ‎the side panels (the tabs should fit neatly into the slots.) Make sure the two ‎little holes are at the bottom edge of this piece, next to the base.

Secure the front in place with two M3 bolts.‎

Building the Screen Assembly

While we've still got some flexibility in the cabinet, now is a good time to build ‎and fit the screen assembly. Set aside the cabinet for now. For making the ‎screen assembly you'll need the printed cardboard screen surround and ‎the large square acrylic screen panel from the CABINET BOX and the LCD ‎screen itself, the four curiously shaped screen mount acrylic pieces labelled ‎with TOP and BASE, the baggie of 4 M2.5 metal flange bolts and the screen ‎driver board, keypad, and associated ribbon cables from the SCREEN box.‎

All of the acrylic pieces, including the screen acrylic, will have white protective ‎film on. Peel this off each of the pieces as you use them (you can leave on ‎the layer on the outside of the large screen piece until the end of the build to ‎protect it, if you wish.) Once you've removed the protective film from the ‎inside of the large screen piece (and from the screen itself) you'll want to try ‎your best not to get any dust, fingerprints, crumbs, or pet hair on these inside ‎surfaces, as it will be difficult to get rid of once these pieces are sandwiched ‎together.‎

The 8" and 10" screen assemblies work slightly differently, make sure to ‎follow the correct set of instructions for your screen size!‎

‎8" SCREEN ASSEMBLY‎

Take the large square acrylic screen panel and lay it down with the tabs on ‎either side, and the curved edge at the top. Place the screen surround ‎artwork face down onto it, also with the curved edge at the top.

Peel the protective film off the screen using the tab at the side (being careful ‎to avoid fingerprints) and place the screen face down on top of the cardboard, ‎with the display cable towards the top edge.

The two narrow, clear acrylic pieces marked 8" TOP 1 and 8" BASE 1, go at ‎the top and base of the screen and hold it in place. The curved edge of 8" ‎TOP 1 will align with the curved edge at the top of the screen acrylic, and the ‎tabs at the sides should line up with the tabs on the large acrylic screen piece ‎underneath. With all these screen mount pieces; the text should be the right ‎way up and facing you.

Before adding the final parts of the screen assembly, attach the display driver ‎board to its acrylic bracket. Take the acrylic piece (marked 8" 10" TOP 2) and ‎place it with the protruding part pointing downwards and the text facing you. ‎The bolts used to attach the display driver board to its bracket are the four ‎black metal M2.5 flange bolts in a separate bag. These have low-profile ‎heads, with no slot on top, and prevent the acrylic bracket for the driver board ‎from bending out too far. Use four of the black plastic M2.5 nuts to attach the ‎flange screws.‎

Place the driver board on top of the screws and secure it in place with four ‎more M2.5 nylon nuts, making sure that the HDMI and micro-USB ports are ‎towards the base, and the ribbon cable connector is at the top.‎

We found it easier to connect the screen to its driver board now, before ‎adding the BASE 2 and TOP 2 screen mounting pieces. The screen cable is ‎built into the 8" screen, which makes this step a little more straightforward. ‎Open the LVDS connector on the driver board by carefully sliding the grey ‎part away from the white part a little bit, towards the top of the driver board. ‎You can then poke the screen ribbon cable down into the slot in the ‎connector. Once it's pushed in as far as it can go, slide the connector back ‎into position - if it's plugged in correctly, the cable should be locked in place.‎

Place the acrylic piece marked 8" 10" BASE 2 at the base of the screen ‎assembly. Place the 8" 10" TOP 2 bracket with the driver board towards the ‎centre of the screen. You might need to gently encourage the screen cable to ‎flex upwards so that you can line up this acrylic piece. Use four M3 screws, ‎pushed through from the front side of the assembly (with the clear acrylic), to ‎hold the whole screen assembly together, and secure it with four M3 nuts. Be ‎careful not to over-tighten these nuts and bolts or you’ll risk cracking the ‎acrylic.

You can plug the long narrow keypad cable into the driver board now (though ‎we won't be attaching the keypad until later). The keypad connector is the ‎same type as the one you used to secure the screen cable in place. The blue ‎side of the keypad cable should be facing towards you, away from the board. ‎Note that the ribbon cable for the keypad should go underneath the grey ‎plastic clips on the connectors on both the keypad and display driver board. If ‎you insert the cable on top of the grey plastic clip, then you might still get it to ‎fit but it won't work!

Lay the keypad aside for later. Your screen assembly is done! That's probably ‎the fiddliest bit, so reward yourself with a cup of tea or something nice.‎

‎10" SCREEN ASSEMBLY‎

Take the large square acrylic screen panel and lay it down with the tabs on ‎either side, and the curved edge at the top. Place the screen surround ‎artwork face down onto it, also with the curved edge at the top.

Peel the protective film off the screen using the tab at the side (being careful ‎to avoid fingerprints) and place the screen face down on top of the cardboard, ‎with the display connector towards the top edge.

The two narrow, clear acrylic pieces marked 10" TOP 1 and 10" BASE 1, go at ‎the top and base of the screen and hold it in place. The curved edge of 10" ‎TOP 1 will align with the curved edge at the top of the screen acrylic, and the ‎notches in 10" BASE 1 should be on its upper edge (the triangular notches at ‎the bottom edge of the LCD panel will slot into these in a moment). With all ‎these screen mount pieces; the text should be the right way up and facing ‎you.

Before adding the final parts of the screen assembly, attach the display driver ‎board to its acrylic bracket. Take the acrylic piece (marked 8" 10" TOP 2) and ‎place it with the protruding part pointing downwards and the text facing you.

The bolts used to attach the display driver board to its bracket are the four ‎black metal M2.5 flange bolts in a separate bag. These have low-profile ‎heads, with no slot on top, and prevent the acrylic bracket for the driver board ‎from bending out too far. Use four of the black plastic M2.5 nuts to attach the ‎flange screws.

Push the four M2.5 flange bolts through from the back of the acrylic, and ‎then attach the driver board with four more M2.5 nylon nuts, making sure ‎that the HDMI and micro-USB ports are towards the base, and the ribbon ‎cable connector is at the top.‎

We found it easier to connect the screen to its driver board now, before ‎adding the BASE 2 and TOP 2 screen mounting pieces. Locate the small, ‎wide ribbon cable with one gold end and one blue end. Carefully flip up the ‎grey tab of the LVDS connector on the driver board so it's pointing towards ‎you. You should then be able to slot the blue end of the short, wide ribbon ‎cable (with the blue side facing up) into the open LVDS connector and flip the ‎grey tab back down to secure it. If you have trouble inserting this end of the ‎cable into the connector, check that the grey tab is fully open - take care not ‎to bend it back too far though, as the clips are reasonably delicate.

The gold end of the cable plugs into the screen - the connector should just ‎slide into the gold connector sideways, and once you've got it lined up you ‎should be able to push in gently in using your thumbnail (don't force it). This ‎end doesn't really lock in place, so be careful not to dislodge it when you're ‎repositioning the TOP 2 acrylic piece.‎

Place the acrylic piece marked 8" 10" BASE 2 at the base of the screen ‎assembly. Place the 8" 10" TOP 2 bracket with the driver board towards the ‎centre of the screen. You might need to gently encourage the screen cable to ‎flex upwards so that you can line up this acrylic piece. Use four M3 screws, ‎pushed through from the front side of the assembly (with the clear acrylic), to ‎hold the whole screen assembly together, and secure it with four M3 nuts. Be ‎careful not to over-tighten these nuts and bolts or you’ll risk cracking the ‎acrylic.‎

You can plug the long narrow keypad cable into the driver board now (though ‎we won't be attaching the keypad until later). Time for another kind of ‎connector! You can open the keypad connector on the driver board by ‎carefully sliding the grey part away from the white part, towards BASE 1 and ‎BASE 2, allowing you to poke the ribbon cable into the slot in the connector. ‎Like the last one, the blue side of the cable should be facing towards you, ‎away from the board. You can then slide the connector back into position - if ‎it's plugged in correctly, the cable should be locked in place. Note that the ‎ribbon cable for the keypad should go underneath the grey plastic clips on the ‎connectors on both the keypad and display driver board. If you insert the ‎cable on top of the grey plastic clip, then you might still get it to fit but ‎it won't work!

‎

Lay the keypad aside for later. Your screen assembly is done! That's probably ‎the fiddliest bit, so reward yourself with a cup of tea or something nice.‎

Finishing Cabinet Assembly

For the rest of the build, the 8" and 10" versions of the Picade go together in ‎exactly the same way. We're about to add the screen assembly to the ‎cabinet, but before you do, you'll want to add two more plastic brackets at ‎the top. Use M3 nuts and bolts to secure them in place through the centre ‎hole as before, they should line up with the slots in the top of the side pieces ‎with the flat surface with two slots facing upwards.‎

You might find it helpful to turn the Picade onto one of its sides for this next ‎bit, as you'll be wrestling a lot of things into slots at the same time and it's ‎easier to get them lined up if they're supported at one end. You'll need to slot ‎the whole screen assembly into the cabinet (making sure the curved edge of ‎the screen assembly is at the top of the cabinet). The tabs on the sides of ‎the screen assembly should fit neatly into the slots in the side panels, and ‎there should still be enough flex in the cabinet to wiggle them in.‎

Locate the marquee assembly - that's the bit that sits above the screen with ‎the Picade logo on, and is a long, thin sandwich of two acrylic layers and one ‎paper layer that was originally in the CABINET box (but is now probably in a ‎big pile of leftover bits.) Remove all the protective plastic, and re-sandwich ‎the layers back together with the cardboard layer in the middle.‎

A little masking tape or a rubber band can help to hold the marquee ‎sandwich together (you’ll be able to peel it off easily later). Slot this piece into ‎place into the slots at the top and front of the cabinet, with the PICADE text ‎facing forward. Make sure to keep an eye on the screen assembly while you ‎do this as it might fall out of its slots - another pair of hands might be useful ‎for this bit.‎

To complete the body of the cabinet, locate wooden panel C (if you haven't ‎attached it already) and slot it into place at the top of the cabinet, with the ‎protuberance for the door closure (or the 'nobble' as we're apparently calling ‎it) pointing backwards, away from the screen - as with the previous step, you ‎might need to hold the screen assembly and the marquee assembly in place ‎while you get everything slotted in. Once everything's in place, you can use ‎four M3 nuts and bolts to attach top panel C to the brackets, which should ‎secure everything. You can now let go of all the things you were holding on to, ‎phew!

PLUGGING IN THE HDMI CABLE

Before we move on, now is a good time to plug in your HDMI cable. If you're ‎using a Pi 4, you'll need to use the HDMI cable and the micro-HDMI adaptor, ‎if you're using an older Pi, you'll just need the HDMI cable. One end goes to ‎the HDMI port on the screen driver board, and the other end to the HDMI or ‎micro-HDMI port on your Pi.‎

Note that a Raspberry Pi 4 has two micro-HDMI display ports - make sure ‎you're plugging your cable into the default one (HDMI-0). It's the one next to ‎the Pi's USB-C connector!

ATTACHING THE KEYPAD

You can now attach the keypad (the small, black board with five buttons) to ‎the end of the narrow ribbon cable. The connector on the keypad is the same ‎as the one on the other end of this cable, and you'll need to plug it in with the ‎blue side of the cable on the same side as the keypad buttons.

Turn the cabinet round so you're looking at it from the back. There are two ‎holes on the left-hand side near the top of panel B for attaching the keypad to ‎the cabinet, line it up with the holes with the ribbon cable pointing towards ‎the screen, and secure it in place with nylon M2.5 bolts and nuts, with the ‎nuts on the inside.‎

Attaching the Power Button

Locate the power button from the bag with the buttons and examine it - you'll ‎either have a black metal button with a yellow ring and five pins, or a ‎translucent yellow plastic button with four pins. You'll also need the red and ‎black power button cable.‎

IF YOU HAVE A METAL 5 PIN POWER BUTTON.‎.

Unscrew and remove the hexagonal metal ring from the button, this will be ‎used to secure it to the cabinet once you've wired it up. You should also have ‎a small rubber o ring that goes with the button, keep this handy.

There are five contacts on the bottom of this button, labelled 1, 2, C, NO and ‎NC. First, we'll connect up the LED part of the button. Push the spade ‎connectors on the red and black wires onto contacts 1 and 2 (the ones ‎sticking out of the blue bit), either way round.‎

From one of the black wiring looms, tear off a pair of two wires from one end. ‎Plug these spade connectors onto the contacts labelled C and NO (they're the ‎two contacts between the wires that you just plugged in.) You'll want to ‎check that none of the metal connectors plugged into the back of the button ‎are touching each other, you can gently bend the contacts slightly to ‎separate them if they are.

You can then thread both sets of wires through the hole in panel B from the ‎outside, followed by the button, and then secure it in place using the ‎hexagonal metal ring. We put the o ring on the inside of the Picade (in ‎between panel B and the metal ring) to help stop the button from spinning ‎round, but you could put it on the outside or leave it out completely if you ‎prefer.

We'll wire up the Picade X HAT end of these cables later on. Now is another ‎good time for a break, before we get started on the final stretch!‎

IF YOU HAVE A PLASTIC 4 PIN POWER BUTTON...‎

Unscrew and remove the black collar on the button, this will be used to ‎secure it to the cabinet once you've wired it up. The two contacts at the ‎centre of the button are marked with a + and -.‎

The contacts on the illuminated power button can be a little fragile and the ‎spade connectors on the wires a little tight which means it's possible to make ‎the contacts disappear into the body of the button if you push on them too ‎hard. If the contacts on the button don't slot into the spade connectors easily, ‎we'd suggest loosening the connectors on the wires slightly by prying them ‎open with a flat-headed screwdriver, you can then crimp them gently with ‎pliers once attached. With this in mind, gently push the spade connectors on ‎the cable onto the contacts, red to + and black to -.‎

From one of the black wiring looms, tear off a pair of two wires from one end. ‎Plug the spade connectors onto the other two contacts on the power button, ‎it doesn't matter which way round these ones go. You'll want to check that ‎none of the metal connectors plugged into the back of the button are ‎touching each other, you can gently bend the contacts slightly to separate ‎them if they are. You can then thread both sets of wires through the hole in ‎panel B from the outside, followed by the button, and then secure it in place ‎using the black collar.‎

We'll wire up the Picade X HAT end of these cables later on. Now is another ‎good time for a break, before we get started on the final stretch!‎

Building the Console Assembly

The last bit to assemble is the console assembly, where the buttons and ‎joystick live. Locate the sandwich of wood, cardboard, and acrylic with lots of ‎holes in. Line the three pieces up so the buttonholes match and the printed ‎cardboard is facing the acrylic. Remove the inner protective layer on the ‎acrylic - you can leave the outer protective layer on until the end of the build if ‎you wish.

‎Poke the yellow, pink, and blue buttons through the six holes in the console ‎sandwich from the outside. The canon arrangement is yellow on the left, pink ‎in the middle and blue on the right to match the artwork, but feel free to ‎arrange them however you wish!‎

Slot the console assembly on the tabs on the front of the Picade. The buttons ‎should be on the right, and the stripes on the screen assembly and console ‎assembly artwork should match up.‎

We're now going to attach the joystick! Peel off the protective plastic on top ‎of the joystick, and then locate the set of five pins - these are what you'll plug ‎the joystick connector cable into. They sometimes get a bit bent in transit, ‎but you should be able to straighten them out with your fingers. Poke the ‎joystick through from the bottom of the console assembly and orient it so the ‎pins are pointing towards the buttons. Fasten it in place with M3 bolts ‎through the holes at the top and bottom of the joystick, and nuts on the ‎inside - take care not to over-tighten these nuts and bolts or you’ll risk ‎cracking the acrylic.‎

Pop the dust cover collar over the joystick and attach the ball on top. You ‎can use a flat-head screwdriver to hold the shaft of the joystick from below ‎while you tighten up the ball, if necessary.

Note that the bolts used to attach the joystick are only slightly larger than the ‎holes on the metal joystick plate, however the holes in the plastic and MDF ‎console pieces are spaced slightly further apart than the holes on the metal ‎joystick plate so that the nuts grip over the edge of the holes when tightened. ‎This is an intentional feature of the design, and your joystick will still be firmly ‎attached.‎

Push the black buttons through the holes in the front and sides of the cabinet. ‎We're going to leave off attaching the console assembly to the cabinet until ‎after we've wired everything up, as it makes things a lot easier!‎

WIRING THE BUTTONS AND JOYSTICK

Back to the black wiring looms with spade connectors on one end! You're ‎going to need one set of twelve wires (for the coloured buttons on top), and ‎one with eight wires for the side and front buttons, so remove another pair of ‎wires from the one that you stole a pair from earlier and set it aside.‎

Take the set of twelve wires and separate the strands a bit into six pairs at ‎the end with the spades. This will help when connecting them up. Flip the ‎console assembly upside down so you can access the buttons easily, and ‎working from one side of the cable, connect each pair of spades to each ‎button from 1 to 6 (marked on the underside of the console).

‎While you're looking at the underside of the console, take the opportunity to ‎plug in the joystick cable (that's the one with five wires and a white plastic ‎clip on the end) The white plastic clip pushes onto the five pins on the ‎joystick, with the locking clip facing you (and the exposed metal on the ‎connector pointing towards the wooden layer of the console assembly.)‎

Before you put the console assembly back on the cabinet, take the other ‎wiring loom (with eight wires) and separate the strands a little into four pairs ‎at the end with the spades. Taking each pair in turn, connect them to the ‎ENT, ESC, 1UP, and COIN buttons.

Poke all three sets of wires through the cabinet towards the Picade X HAT ‎and place the console assembly back in place on the cabinet (best to not ‎fasten it on yet, in case you need to adjust any of the wiring.)‎

WIRING EVERYTHING INTO THE PICADE X HAT

You should now have five sets of wires at the back of the cabinet ready to be ‎connected to the Picade X HAT (six pairs from the coloured buttons, four ‎pairs from the side and front buttons, one black pair from the power button, ‎one black and red pair from the power button, and five wires from the joystick, ‎all ending in Dupont connectors [that's the ones with the pins]).‎

Before things get too busy with the wiring, we'd suggest plugging in ‎the micro-USB cable that provides power to the screen. The small micro-USB ‎end goes into POWER IN on the screen driver board, and the big USB-A end ‎goes into one of the USB ports on the Pi.‎

Before plugging in the joystick cable to the Picade X HAT, take a peek at the ‎underside of the console assembly again. The GND wire is marked 1 on the ‎white joystick connector. Follow this wire to the other end (the wires all have ‎different markings, so this should be straightforward) and plug the pins into ‎the JOYSTICK header on Picade X HAT, making sure that the GND wire goes ‎to the appropriately marked header.‎

If your joystick only has one direction that works later when it comes to ‎mapping the controls, then the wires have been connected back-to-front. ‎Simply remove the pin connectors from the JOYSTICK header on the Picade ‎X HAT, flip them 180 degrees, and plug them in again.‎

To connect the coloured buttons, take the six pairs of pins at the other end of ‎the cable and connect them to the header marked BUTTONS from 1 to 6 (the ‎orientation of the pairs of pins doesn’t matter, as long as each pair of pins ‎corresponds to one button). If you've plugged them in order, it should be easy ‎to figure out what pair of wires is associated with each button, although it ‎doesn't matter a huge amount which button is connected to which position, ‎as you'll be configuring the buttons in software later on.‎

Connect the front and side buttons in the same way, to the ENT, ESC, 1UP ‎and COIN headers.‎

The pair of black wires from the power button should go into the header ‎labelled ON, and the red and black wire goes into the header labelled LED. If ‎you have a 4-pin power button, make sure the red wire goes into the header ‎labelled + (that's the one furthest away from you) and the black wire goes in ‎to the one marked -.‎

ATTACHING THE CONSOLE AND THE BACK OF THE CABINET

You're almost done with the build!‎

Once you're happy everything's plugged in correctly, remove the console ‎assembly again. Attach the two remaining brackets to the outside of the ‎cabinet with M3 nuts and bolts, with the side of the bracket with three holes ‎pointing upwards. It's worth leaving these nuts and bolts a little bit loose, until ‎you've attached the bracket to the console assembly.‎

You can then secure the console assembly with more M3 nuts and bolts ‎through the console acrylic.‎

All that's left to do now is to put the back of the cabinet on - with the good ‎side facing outwards, slot the two tabs at the bottom of panel F into the slots ‎at the base of the cabinet, and the protrusion on panel C into the slot at the ‎top - you might have to flex the top of the cabinet slightly to get it in. Pop one ‎of the O-rings over the nobble to keep everything in place.‎

Peel off the protective layer on the front of the screen acrylic and console ‎acrylic if you haven't already, and you're done!‎

Getting Started with Retropie

HOW TO WRITE RETROPIE TO YOUR SD CARD

We recommend the Retropie operating system for your Picade! You can write ‎it to your SD card with Raspberry Pi Imager, available for Windows, Mac and ‎Linux. Once you've downloaded it, plug your micro-SD card into your ‎computer, open up Raspberry Pi Imager, and click on the first box to select ‎Retropie - you can find it under the 'Emulation and Game OS' category. Make ‎sure to select the correct version for the kind of Raspberry Pi you're using! In ‎the second box, select your SD card then click on the write button!

We'd recommend only using official Retropie images with your Picade, as ‎we've found that third party images often have custom configurations and ‎default button mappings which can interfere with our install script.‎

Once Raspberry Pi Imager has finished, pop your freshly burned micro-SD into ‎the slot on the underside of your Pi. You'll need to plug a USB keyboard into ‎your Pi the first time you boot it to allow you to configure the Wi-Fi.‎

Plug your power supply into the USB-C connector on the Picade X HAT (the ‎HAT will supply power to your Pi). Press the power button on the Picade or ‎on the Picade X HAT and your Picade will now boot up!‎

CONNECTING TO WI-FI

You'll need to connect to Wi-Fi to run the Picade HAT installer (which will ‎install the scripts to make the buttons, joystick, audio, and power button ‎work). Press F4 to get to the terminal. Then type sudo raspi-config. The wireless ‎settings are under 1 System Options > Wireless LAN - you can navigate this menu ‎with the cursor keys on your keyboard and enter. You'll need to enter your ‎country, wireless SSID and password - note that the SSID and password are ‎case sensitive!

Retropie defaults to a UK keyboard layout, so if you're not using a UK ‎keyboard you might want to change the layout to one that matches your ‎keyboard while you are in this menu - you'll need access to some of the more ‎esoteric keys for the next bit! You can change the keyboard layout under 5 ‎Localisation Options > L3 Keyboard. Reboot to save the raspi-config changes (it will ‎prompt you to reboot when you try and exit the raspi-config menu, or you can ‎type sudo reboot at the command prompt.)‎

INSTALLING THE PICADE SOFTWARE

Once Retropie has started up again, press F4 again to get back to the ‎terminal. To run the Picade HAT installer, type curl ‎https://get.pimoroni.com/picadehat | bash and press enter, then follow the instructions.‎

The pipe symbol (|) in the command above is a tricksy little fellow - if you ‎can't find it on your keyboard, this video might help locate it. If you're ‎pressing the pipe symbol and getting another symbol, you might need to ‎switch to a different keyboard layout as described in the section above.‎

Once the Picade software has installed successfully (and you've rebooted ‎again) you should find that the power button, sound, buttons, and joystick all ‎now start working!‎

MAPPING THE KEYS

From Retropie's welcome screen, you should now be able to hold down any ‎of the Picade buttons to start mapping the keys. The Picade buttons/joystick ‎will show up as a keyboard rather than a controller, because the Picade X ‎HAT reads the joystick and button inputs as emulated keyboard presses.‎

Retropie will ask you to assign a button to all its controls, but if you want to ‎skip a button assignment (for the analog sticks, for example, which retro ‎games don't really use) you can hold down one of the buttons to move onto ‎the next one.‎

The key mappings you set in Retropie are inherited by some emulators but ‎not others. If you find that your controls are working in the Retropie menus ‎but not in games, we'd recommend consulting the documentation for the ‎emulator in question to find out how to map the controls!‎

ADJUSTING THE VOLUME

Once you've installed the software, the volume of the Picade speaker will be ‎set at 100% by default. If that's a bit much, you can adjust the volume using ‎the sound settings menu, which is accessible from the Retropie menu by ‎pressing whatever button you've got mapped as START. Your 'audio device' ‎should be set to PCM, 'audio card' to DEFAULT and 'OMX Player Audio ‎Device' to ALSA. Once you've selected the correct audio device, you might ‎need to restart Retropie to make the volume slider start working properly.‎

Like the key mappings, these volume settings will only apply to the emulators ‎that inherit their settings from Retropie, so you might find that you need to ‎adjust the volume for some emulators from within their own settings.‎

PEW! PEW! PEW! Your Picade is now set up and ready to go!‎

Troubleshooting

NO SIGNAL?‎

If you get a 'No Signal' message on your screen when it's booting up, you'll ‎need to do little jiggery-pokery to get it working. Raspberry Pi OS (which ‎Retropie is based on) initialises its display before it initialises its USB ports, so ‎because we're powering the screen from the Pi's USB ports it's not being ‎detected on boot. We'll need to add a line to the Pi's config.txt file to get it to ‎do things in the right order! There's a couple of ways you can do this:‎

If you've got a computer with a microSD card reader you can plug the SD ‎card back into your computer (unplug the Pi before you take out the SD card) ‎and navigate to the SD card in Windows Explorer (or equivalent file manager). ‎Because the SD card is now formatted for Linux, a Windows computer might ‎give you a message about there being a problem with the drive, don't let it try ‎and fix it :)‎

Open up config.txt in a text editor such as Notepad and scroll down until you ‎find the hdmi_force_hotplug=1 line.‎

Delete the # from the beginning of this line, save the file, put the SD card ‎back into your Pi and try powering it up again!‎

Alternatively, you can edit config.txt from your Pi. To do this you'll need to ‎unplug the USB cable connecting the Pi to the screen and power the screen ‎from an external power source (such as a microUSB power supply or phone ‎charger), so you can see what you're editing! Once you've got an image on ‎screen and Retropie has loaded, press F4 to exit the Retropie GUI. Type sudo ‎nano /boot/config.txt to open up config.txt in a text editor and delete the # from ‎the beginning of the hdmi_force_hotplug=1 line as above. It's ctrl-x and then y and ‎then enter to save the file when you're done.‎

I GET A 'COULD NOT RESOLVE HOST' ERROR WHEN I TRY AND INSTALL THE ‎SOFTWARE!‎

If you get a 'could not resolve host' error when you try and run the install ‎script, there's probably a problem with your Wi-Fi settings. Go back to sudo ‎raspi-config and try inputting them again, then rebooting. Note that both SSID ‎and password are case-sensitive!‎

I GET AN 'APT FAILED TO UPDATE INDEXES' ERROR WHEN I TRY AND INSTALL THE ‎SOFTWARE!‎

This error sometimes crops up when new versions of Raspberry Pi OS (which ‎Retropie is based upon) are being introduced. Enter the following command ‎in the console to get your indexes back in sync:‎

sudo apt update

and then re-run the curl one line installer.‎

EMULATION STATION DOESN'T SAVE MY FAVOURITES!‎

If you find that Emulation Station is losing your favorites when you turn ‎Picade off using the power button, try changing 'Other Settings > Save ‎Metadata' to 'ALWAYS' in the Emulation Station main menu.‎

That's all folks!

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