“This kit appeared this morning for my birthday and I can not speak highly enough of it. The build quality of the cabinet is very very good — I was impressed with the design throughout. The powder cote looks fantastic and the weight gives it a real quality feel.
Build time for me was a solid three hours, savouring every moment — it was great fun and rekindled some old memories of when I was into electronics kits as a lad. Had a little snafu at the end when all I got was a blue screen was resolved with some googling and a config file change for the HDMI settings.
Ensure you have a tiny flat head (about 3mm?) screwdriver before you start the project as you'll need it for the headers on the picade board.
I'll be tweaking this thing for ages now. Not entirely happy with my placement of the pi3 inside so I'll re position that. I also subbed out a slightly longer,more flexible hdmi cable for the one provided so I had more options for the pi's location.
I'll also be strengthening the back of the handle with some hardwood beading as there is a little flex there which would benefit from reinforcement.
The little 8 inch screen is sharp and bright enough for the moment. I will be on the lookout for a 12 inch, as this thing is crying out for it.
All I need now is a custom joystick knob and some backlit buttons...
Well done Pimoroni!”
“With PiCade, I play crappy old (I joke) classic arcade games for much longer thanks to the amazing arcade style authenticity that is served to you with nothing but utter brilliance :D
Assembling the cabinet is simple and fun. Great for modifications too.
I'm impressed with Pimoroni as a store. There transaction flow is informative, with tracking and updates. The guys are active in the forums if you have any queries. I'll be coming back to see what other gubbins are on offer.
But yeah, PiCade is awesome. Definitely remedies that rose-tinted retro gaming itch ten-fold. Great price too!”
“Its just amazing, really amazing. I cant believe the price on this, its so cheap. I build arcades before and i know how expensive it can be. The quality of the material is also perfect. Better than al the big cabinets i build with before. I bought 2 for myself and will buy some more, there so great. Made a back to the future and ghostbusters cabinet.
Some tips:
If you are going to use your own decals, stick them om the picade cardboard art. You will get no air bubbles and its easy to install.
MAKE THE PICADE WIRELESS AND PORTABLE. Use it outside, in the car, you name it. Buy a 40 bucks 20.000mah 5v powerbank with 2 usb ports. This will last for about 20h of gaming. I also bought two 3 dollar usb power on/off switch, but you can also just plug/unplug the usb. This is only possible with the 8inch screen, the 12inch needs 12v.
And for software. On ebay they sell a 128gb attract mode for only 15 dollar, this is a GREAT hyperspin looking mode fot retropie. Makes it a real arcade.
Dont think, just BUY this picade. You'll be very sorry if they ever stop.”
“Oh man, she didn't. She did ! My wife bought this awesome picade kit for me. Best Christmas present ever. A joy to build for anyone who can watch a video and work a screw driver, I took my time over several nights trying to make the build last, was not disappointed in the quality of each part. Put together it's a thing of beauty, a joy to behold. Teamed up with retropi this is going to be misspending my youth all over again.”
“I have been using retropie for a while now but playing old games on a massive monitor with an xbox controller does not feel the same.
This machine changes all of that. The games look great on the smaller screen and are much more fun to play with arcade buttons.
I was a little concerned about only the small screen being available at first but on reflection I think the 8" screen if perfect for the games I have been playing.
The build was straight forward and any issues I had were quickly dealt with by the support team. It took me a few hours in total and the YouTube video build for the most part was a great guide.
When the cabinet was built all I had to do was link up my pi and turn it on. You need to make sure the hdmi hot plug setting is on for the screen to work and force audio through the 3.5 mm jack is your audio setting in retropie.
Without this you will have no sound.
I think this is great value for money and a flexible kit if you want to extend if further. I have already ordered some extra arcade bits to mod it.
If you like retro gaming and playing around with the raspberry pi then this is a no brainer.”
“I snapped up this when it was on sale in the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale as a Christmas present for my 10yo son. It's been a massive hit, and I would gladly have paid full price for it. He put it together himself, under my supervision, following the video instructions. We had a bit of a hiccup on first attempt, when we tried to boot it and the screen just came up grey. Booting with an alternate display worked fine, and a quick internet search revealed that the cause was the ribbon cable not being seated properly. Once that was sorted, it works like a charm. I think he actually had at least as much fun building it as he is playing with it.”
“I literally came across Picade by accident when struggling to find xmas present ideas and how this piece of kit doesn't have a higher profile I do not know!
Having loved the retro revolution and also with little space for a full size arcade project this was an ideal starter for me. The kit is fantastic, well presented and packaged with the online written and video instructions enough to get you through the build. I'm now setting up the Retropie software which is going to be the most challenging part of this mini project, but having set up Mame and other emulators on many other systems in the past I know that experience will get me through.
It’s worth thoroughly reading these reviews as well as online blogs that are available as they offer great advice and tips to get things running (particularly with setting up the config file changes needed for the sound and HDMI)
Most of the Retropie emulators are pretty straightforward but if you have little experience of Mame (arcade emulator) there is an essential guide to versions and romsets here as this can be quite complex - https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/MAME
Overall, I highly recommend this kit, its certainly not plug and play but half the fun is in the set up and learning lots of new things in the process. I know from my previous experience with these things that once it is all set up and complete it will be an absolute joy to experience proper retro gaming in the way it was always intended.”
“This kit is amazing. I've always wanted my own arcade machine but didn't know where to start but this kit has everything and by following the really helpful video i was up and running in about 3 hours. Don't use it with a pi zero unless you have a powered USB hub because mine couldn't power the screen and controls at the same time with an unpowered hub. Works great with the pi 3 though, Don't be put off by the price, it really is a great deal when you get it all working.
One of the best things I've ever brought and by far the best DIY kit I've ever seen.
Thanks!”
