“I saw the release of the new Picade and I placed my order. I think I beat the rush as they switched to pre-order not long afterwards.
As ever, Pimoroni delivered quickly. The packaging is good quality. The unit and its components are good. The build instructions matched the original Picade in terms of complexity. Although well written, they take some digging through. The bags of nuts and screws and so on could do with being labelled.
The actual build is IMHO more solid than the original Picade. The screen part is vastly better placed and mounted in a much more solid way. That fixes an issue on the original. The controller board also addresses an original issue where I had to previously use two power supplies - one for screen and one for Pi. No longer needed in this model.
The wiring work is still a bit fiddly, and the final panel fitting remains a by gymnastic.
Completed, I downloaded the drivers and loaded up various builds - and its all good. I think that overall, I give this a 9 out of 10, and its a better smaller arcade than the bigger brother. For some reason, the joystick feels better on this than the previous Picade.
Anyway - discounted to £135 on release, its basically fantastic and if you like 'arcade' - what are you waiting for??”
“wow. Just wow.
Some time ago, I ordered only the electronic parts like the screen, buttons and joystick because I wanted to build my own cabinet. Only to find out that it wasn't that easy.
Now that the new version of the picade had been released, I invested some money and bought the full kit.
Et voila - it works! It is a high quality kit with good instructions. I've had a fun weekend building it together with my son.
The lit powerbutton together with the new powermanagement is a huge plus! If installed correctly, you can easily power up and shut down the picade by the press of one button. And the glowing of the button shows you the status. Awesome!
Only one problem occured: at first, I only managed to power it up when I supplied the screen and raspberry with different power sources. I thought that the problem might be that my sources where not powerful enough. Then I found a really powerful USB adapter and I got this the problem.
What happened? I didn't read the full description which says you should add "hdmi_force_hotplug=1" to your config.txt (see description above) and then it works without a flaw!
I can only recommend this kit!”
“Just built my new Picade, brilliant, everything goes together really well. New instructions, new box art, it is much smaller and neater than the original, my grandkids will be so excited about this. Thanks Pimoroni keep on bringing things like this to our otherwise boring lives.”
“Been putting off buying one of these for a while now, but boy am I glad i bought it.
I cant get the family off it to get a go. They are fighting over it.
The item is solid once built, and feels very good quality.
The build was easy, took a while and a bit fiddly, but not complicated.
I'm using Pi3B+ and Retropie.
I'm impressed with the viewing angle of the screen, and the speakers arent too quiet, you just need to adjust the volume mixer level in retropie to get it louder.
Thanks Pimoroni, I love this product, and recommend it to all my friends.”
“The picade is amazing and has been the perfect project for me and my son. Great customer service and aftercare, you can tell this was made with love, takes right back to my childhood everytime I turn it on, oh and I let my son play it some times!”
“This is a relly great kit, I built it in something like 2 or 3 hours, and the video tutorial was very helpful.
I had my screen that was defective, and I would like to say a big thank you to the support, who sends me another screen quickly.”
“I got this set for my birthday and I can say it is amazing quality and a very professional finish
I got to wiring the buttons when I found the audio jack had fallen off the chip however pimoroni customer service sent me a new one for the day after!”
“This is a great kit, I had an absolute great time putting it together. There were a few hiccups mainly with me not paying attention. I put the screen in upside down and may have misplaced a few pieces but I had so much fun putting it together that didn't put me off.
The kit itself is great and is absolutely solid. The buttons and joysticks have a great feel and the screen is very nice too. I have noticed a lot of people elsewhere say that the speakers aren't loud enough for them. Perhaps my hearing is just super strong but I think they are plenty loud enough for the size of the cabinet.
I also need to compliment the pimoroni customer service team on twitter. When I thought I didn't receive my wiring loom they were quick to respond and offer to send out another one. It turns out I had just temporarily misplaced the original but if there really was a missing part I am confident that it would have been resolved quickly.”
