Episode: 4141
Title: HPR4141: Picade Console
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4141/hpr4141.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 20:08:54

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This is Hacker Public Radio episode 4141 from Monday the 17th of June 2024.
Today's show is entitled, Picate Console.
It is hosted by Kevin and is about 15 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Kevin talks about his experience and shares his thoughts on the Picate Console.
Hello, hello, this is Kevin from the TuX Jam podcast and I wish to continue with my
series that I've been doing on based around things that I've done with my Raspberry Pi.
And today I wish to talk about the console I got from Pimeroni called the Picate Console.
Now I do wish to point out this is not the one that is the arcade cabinet where it comes
as a contained unit.
Rather this is it's kind of a smaller brother, let's see.
It's all contained, yes it is, but however this is not come with a screen, it just connects
up from an HDMI to a monitor or TV.
This is what we're going to look at.
Now I purchased this back in December and I had been actually at a stock for quite a while
so although cash isn't normally that expendable in December I thought I'm getting it because
it's something I've wanted for quite a while.
It comes all pretty much flat packed, you need to put it together.
Sadly it actually comes without any instructions.
So I went on to the Pimeroni website and there are instructions there.
I just to be honest I wish that this had actually come with some written instructions.
Purely because it seems a bit frustrating that if this was something I was wanting to
do let's just say I'd saved it for a I don't know, an outage or a power outage or an internet
outage I couldn't have done this unless I was just going to take a gamble and guess
but I thought no I'm not going to do that.
So upon opening the box everything's all there.
This is made from Spray MDF and the top part is acrylic and you've got a display decorative
piece which is just actually thin card and you can replace this out for whatever you want
if you've got your own printer, color printer at home.
Once you've actually sat it up and if you're a dab hand at something like CAD or inkscape
anything like that you'll be able to make something and then just cut it out.
Starting it together the instructions are okay, they are okay, the reason I'm saying
they're okay is they start off very well and they start off very specific.
However there was two or three times and I had read them through that it was actually
the picture that actually told me slightly different story.
So just things like some parts it actually kind of jumped ahead away but it hadn't explained
about maybe attaching something like there was one where after putting the hat on it
had only told me to maybe do half of the cabling.
It didn't mention about the other parts and then it was from the picture I was like oh
I should have done the rest of these parts.
So just things like that, attaching in the buttons etc that was all absolutely no problem.
That would be perfectly honest the wiring wasn't the best because this was not wiring
that was made specifically for the PiCade console.
Now the PiCade console is a fairly small compact thing and the wiring for it could have probably
been used in a much larger project.
So what ended up happening was an awful lot of the wiring got tangled up and became a
bit of a bird's nest pretty quickly especially once you started doing everything.
I did have a wee bit of an issue putting in the joystick together it was minor but it only
went in a certain way and I remember I think I was I was a wee bit weary just was I putting
this in the right way and in the end it was actually again the picture on the website
on the guide that actually helped me a bit more than the actual text itself.
So it comes with its own built-in speaker things like that very early on in this build
you will actually have to put in the Pi so make sure you've got all that ready and the
Pi is really not that accessible.
So if you want to put anything like a heat sink anything like that you can't put a fan
because they're not with what comes with it anyway because the PiCade the hat for the
Pi does not allow you could get a low profile heat sink in there but you certainly could
not put a fan on there.
So just something to be aware of but not without adding extra pieces.
Wiring once you've got it done was fine.
There does seem to be two different versions of it and it does refer to different parts.
It says if you have this colored button then follow this if you have the other colored
button follow that so just something to be a wee bit aware of there.
Putting it together I was a wee bit weary because getting your hands in and actually screwing
the parts together did mean that it was tight fit and you really didn't want to burst it
because at the end of the day it is MDF and you screw into it you could have quite easily
burst through that and the problem with MDF is if you've ever worked with it it was once
it's burst pretty much the pieces ruined as far as wanting to screw anything in there.
You would literally have to take it.
I mean I could do it because I've got previous expedients but for most people they would
just almost see this has been a damaged item which it would be but if you did burst any
of them what you would need to do is take it out and find the burst bit put PVA glue on
and something like very very fine sawdust so if you had a sander or something like a
trixander with the bag to catch the dust, sprinkle that on it, pack it down, make sure it's
completely sealed over and then leave it overnight.
You wouldn't want to just do this after 20 minutes.
Just something to be aware of when you're doing this.
Once it's together it does feel again when you put in the final piece on you almost feel
like you're risking damaging because all the wires I found were generally sticking out
the back and when you put it on you feel you really are forcing them back in so like
I said I was a bit weary but everything did work.
One caveat I would say is you cannot control this using the joystick alone.
You will need to attach a keyboard and a mouse to this so of course half of the problem
there was but it was me jumping ahead at the end.
This I put on the back panel and the issue is apart from the HDMI and you get an extension
lead that goes from the power source to the back panel which then becomes an attachment
there.
There is no way to get to the various connections on the pie so you've got all of the different
connections and unfortunately you just cannot get to them without removing the back panel.
So I put on the back panel, screwed it in and then realized I've got to take this off
because I had to attach a mouse and keyboard.
I know what you're maybe thinking, why did you not just SSH into it?
I hadn't set it up and that's my honest answer.
And I couldn't even if I wanted to think right I'll just come out and set up the micro
SD card.
I couldn't do that without getting the back off and taking it out anyway.
So I just connected a USB keyboard, USB mouse into it and set it up.
Now first thing you're going to need to do is connect it to the internet.
Now as I said the ports are not accessible so an ethernet is not really ideal so you
really first thing you've got to do is go to Raspiconfig and connect to your wireless.
Once you do this this will not work, it will not register unless you install the stuff
for the hat.
So to do the using the pie hat, the pie kid hat, you need to get into a terminal so obviously
this is where keyboard is a necessity.
And just type in curl, HTTPS, call on forward slash forward slash get dot pie meroni dot
com forward slash pie kid hat and then the pipe symbol or the vertical line symbol whatever
you want and then bash.
And once you do that actually it was no problem at all.
You had to restart it and it seemed to treat all that the pie kid hat was connected all
of the wires from the buttons and the joystick and the beauty of that was once you had done
that it seemed to as if it was treating each one as a keyboard place.
So when it comes to setting up with retro pie then it asks you right what button you want
up you pressed up on the joystick and it worked no ball if you normally if you do this
and retro pie I've found it's pretty much hit or miss it sometimes it works sometimes
it doesn't so that was a nice thing to see.
There's far as the pieces self goes once you have set everything up and you've got everything
running then you've got two buttons at the front and those are like player one player
two.
You've got a button at the side on the left hand side for it's the equivalent of putting
in a coin or adding a credit and you've also got an on off button there.
On the top you've got the joystick over on the left hand side and then six buttons.
The configuration that I had was two yellow two pink and two blue on the buttons on the
front were black as far as the build quality goes I'm going to say it's right in the middle
it doesn't feel too budget it doesn't feel like I'm going to break it however it does
not feel substantial given this is an arcade stick and it's arcade style stick I was used
to hammer in these back in the 80s I never actually owned an arcade machine who could
not many of us certainly but they felt substantial you didn't feel like you were going to break
them.
This one after a few months it's now me and me and I've been using it for a few months
and I don't want to let rip with it because I actually don't feel it's going to last
too long if I do.
So as far as build quality goes the buttons don't feel satisfying they've got a slightly
I mean they're not low budget but they've got a slightly below average feel.
The joystick itself does feel a bit better that I'd say it feels more above average but
of course it tends to be more of the buttons you're more aggressive with especially with
fighting games shooting games or track and field games where you're the quicker you hit
the faster you'll run things like that I've been very wary of it hammering this.
From the feel of it I must admit I'm not overly impressed.
If this was something that didn't cost me very much if I had paid £50 for this then
I wouldn't be complaining but to put this into perspective the PiKid console costs £90
on Pymaroney and you don't get everything with that.
One thing you'll need is a Raspberry Pi 4.
If you want to go like me and decide yeah I want the highest rate, one with the eight gig
of RAM then that's an extra £72 so that is £162.
So then if you're then talking if you need a dedicated power supply if you want one that's
another 10 so yeah again we're talking 172 pounds do you have a spare SD card well I'm
going to assume you do because we all seem to have loads of these line around so I'm
not going to budget that in at all but for 172 pounds I mean oh yes I know you are getting
the Raspberry Pi and it's a whole console and if you compare it to the price of a console
certainly it is a lot cheaper but at the same time there's nothing stopping you connecting
a joystick to your normal PC and running games like that.
I think in this price range when you talk about 172 pounds I think you could get a really
decent stick.
No you're not going to get the top end.
Top end seemed to kind of retail around for the PC seem to be kind of between 3 and
400 pounds I mean that's your kind of very top end but certainly when you compare it
well I haven't tried the for example the 8 bit do stick myself personally but from
my experience with 8 bit do controllers I have actually found them to be slightly better
quality and when you consider the 8 bit do fight stick as they call it is currently available
between 60 and 70 pounds depending where you get it my personal preference would be
that I would go for that I've just went on to a certain well known website and I've
just typed in Deja Arcade stick that top results are going between 250 pounds and 105
pounds now from my experience with Deja they're considerably better than this.
I really am frustrated in saying this because I love the look of this I love Pymarone as
a company and I really wanted to love this Arcade stick however would I recommend it my
honest answer is I'm struggling to recommend it at this price unless you get this on discount
I'm not saying it's a bad piece of kit I'm not saying run a mile from it if I was rating
it about a 10 I think I would be kind of closer to kind of five and six it's not bad but there's
better out there and especially in this price range I'll put the link in the show notes for
the Pymarone link itself if it was if it was me and I was on the mainland I currently live
on the island of Lewis so postage of everything is quite a bit more expensive especially when
you're big items but if I was in our city and or I had read the available access to I would
maybe recommend yes doing this project but maybe actually getting an actual Arcade machine
an older arcade machine and actually putting the pie inside it that would probably be my recommendation
if you'd want in the the console and cabinet but yeah like I said it's entirely up to you
I've just given my my two pennaths in there so if you agree with me disagree with me do you own
one do you want to own one let us know in the comments so this has been another episode for HPR
of my pie projects
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