“Two Picades out of the same batch had panel issues - two rear panels and no bottom panel. Had to RMA one of them and get a separate panel sent to me by Pimoroni. But overall, the Picade is the bees knees coupled with RickDangerous’ image with 4000 games!”
“Really a good little kit/project. Had to read the instructions more than once a few times to make sure I was following correctly but overall no issues. I would say to plan for more than the 3 hours of work though. Took me about 6 hours from start to finish but I took my time and also added the upgraded LED buttons.”
“Simply stunning. Clear instructions, quality components and dreamy packaging.
The end result is magnificent. Screen, sound and functionality are all superb!
I added a lighted marquee, some new art-work and the 10 button plasma kit.
You can take my PS5 but I’ll fight you to the death for my Picade.”
“The Picade is a great bit of kit and arrives lovingly packaged and beautifully presented. Between the instructions provided in the packaging and the various official versions found online overall it was easy to put everything together, if occasionally a little confusing determining which was the best to follow.
There are a few parts of the cabinet design that might be improved: the microSD access slot is welcome but still very fiddly with big fingers; the hole on top of the Picade is not explained - i assume it acts as a carry handle, which is good, but it also means dust gets inside; and, the final 2 screws to attach the console are extremely difficult to fit (I eventually got one in, but gave up on the second so have a slight wobble on the console).
Overall we're really pleased with the Picade - a fun couple of hours constructing, and many more spent introducing the kids to some classic arcade games!”
“Fantastic kit. Ideal for a first or second arcade-building project and learning about all the different bits & pieces! Mine came without instructions but you can find the documentation online, so it’s relatively easy to build. The software setup will need you to be familiar with some basic Linux command line fiddling: you’ll have to spend quite a bit of time tweaking things around (mine had trouble getting the right volume settings to work) but that comes with these types of projects. Happily, though, nothing I encountered wasn’t solvable and I found my perfect setup after a couple of attempts, which is more than I can say about my previous tries to build a Pi-based retro machine. The only drawback? You’ll probably be thinking about building a full-size arcade afterwards! The end results works wonderfully!”