Problem with Picade display ( White screen )

Got Picade kit recently and finally setup today.

All went well until I turn it on.

The pi and screen turn on but its just white on the display - photo attached.

Retropie has been installed ( but no games yet). The pi is OK as it boots into retropie when attached to TV via HDMI. I changed config re HDMI force as per tutorial.

Attached photo of back of display.

Any ideas? Many thanks.

Edit. New user so can’t upload photos.

Did you edit the config file to force it to use HDMI? If you didn’t, then the Pi won’t detect the display because it’s powered directly from the Pi’s GPIO. See the post below for details on how to edit the config file.

http://forums.pimoroni.com/t/picade-screen-problems/839/2?u=sandyjmacdonald

Yes. I tried this. Does it matter when config file is changed?

I changed config file after booting it up for first time when it didn’t work. Then rebooted attached to Picade. Is this correct?

Thanks henry

Does it boot up when you attach another HDMI display?

I’ve enabled photo upload for, you just incase it helps.

I don’t think I’ve seen the screen go white before, blue is the universal colour for on-but-no-signal. I can’t remember what colour it is when you fire it up though, and I don’t have one to check.

Do you have another device to try the screen with? Anything with an HDMI output should do in a pinch.

Also, have you firmly seated the ribbon cable? A picture of it plugged into the driver board would be useful.

Thanks.

Photos attached.

Ribbons seem OK.

Tried the pi on 2 hmdi TV’s and works fine.

the buttons for the display on the right. I assume nothing needs to be done with them? ( I pressed them but just turns on and off)

Hi

Does the screen turn on and off, so the green light goes red? I found that it takes a lot of power and if there isn’t enough coming from the power supply the. The screen will not work, when I plug he wifi into the Pi I have to disable the control panel and plug in a keyboard to make the screen stay on.

Nat

Drat, that’s a very good point and one that I didn’t think of. Thank you.

@BiggestH which power supply are you using for your Picade?

Been using a USB cable plus separate plug (tried couple of USB plugs).

I’ve ordered proper pi plug power supply which’ll be here by tomorrow. Will try then and report back.

Many thanks for all help so far.

Tried proper pi power supply - this still gives green light on switch on RHS in the back of cabinet, but nothing at all being displayed on the cabinet monitor now

Hi

This problem looks less like a problem with the power supply and more to do with the connection to the flat ribbon cable, it also looks very tight. that best thing to try is to take the driver board off of its support pegs and remove and re-seat the flat cable and without putting it back onto the pegs give it at try again :)

Hope this Helps

Gee

I’m having similar problems with my screen (blank/black screen as opposed to the initial white reported by BiggestH), I too had my driver board ribbon cable ‘tort’ as per the video, so I followed rabid_inventors advice and slackened it off and checked the ribbon cable connection was good.

Unfortunately this hasn’t had any effect, I’ve got the hdmi_force_hotplug=1 uncommented in the config.txt and I’m connected to a 2A supply, any ideas?

Hi

The normal response on these displays without any HDMI input is when they are first powered on the display should turn blue, in this mode none of the controls or menu will work, also then green led on the button board will flash on for a second and then turn red. then ~5sec after that the screen should go black.

Please could you try powering the display without the HDMI cable plugged in and see if this is the case. This will help us to know if it is a problem with the board the display or just a settings issue.

Regards
Gee

Hi

I’m on holiday at moment so will try this when I’m back in a week or so

Many thanks.

H

Ok so the display still doesn’t come on at all without the HDMI cable plugged in, the control board LED quickly goes from green to red (probably because it’s getting a signal that there’s no input?). I’m guessing it’s a problem with either the driver board or the screen then?

Cheers
Steve

Try to disconnect the hdmi cable which goes to the screen’s pcb and then connect it again. Same with the raspberry pi’s hdmi port.

I had the blue screen problem and added the hdmi force line to the config file, but nothing happened. Only when I did the thing above the screen detected the signal.

Cheers.

Already tried disconnection and reconnection of the HDMI to no avail, I have tested the same set with two other HDMI monitors and can confirm everything else is working… :-(

Then I guess you should try the screen with another computer : / Maybe is really not working properly.

Good point! I did and the screen still didn’t work, however the other monitor that was connected to the computer I tested the display on switched res to 800x600! Meaning it’s the screen/ribbon cable and not the driver board.

Cheers
Steve

I have exactly the same problem, a white screen. I tried everything like you all suggested: changing setting, input and power supplies. (also the unplug thing). Could it be there was a bad batch of screens? :(