Assembling your Picade

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 stand by. 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 lasercut 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, 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 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 seperate 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 facedown 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

Peel the protective film off the screen using the tab at the side (being careful to avoid fingerprints), and place the screen facedown 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.

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.

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 button holes 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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