5 Part Picade Mods Series

Hi guys,

I was planning on doing a “Picade Mods” Youtubes series where I show some of the simpler mods that you can do to enhance your Picade.

My current ideas are:

Neopixel Madness - adding Neopixels to your Picade to add cool lighting effects
B-B-Buttons!! - Simply changing the buttons, but I’ll cover what will fit and sizing etc
Paints and Stickers - We can all change the card artwork in the marque and control panel but I’ve cover stickers and painting the MDF panels for extreme modding.
Plugs n Power - Solutions for a single power cable design and power buttons.
Speakers & Sound - adding an external amp and changing the speakers

Let me know what you think and if you have any other ideas!

Connor

2 Likes

All sound great.

My order of interest is this…

1 Paints and Stickers - We can all change the card artwork in the marque and control panel but I’ve cover stickers and painting the MDF panels for extreme modding.
2 Plugs n Power - Solutions for a single power cable design and power buttons.
3 Neopixel Madness - adding Neopixels to your Picade to add cool lighting effects
4 B-B-Buttons!! - Simply changing the buttons, but I’ll cover what will fit and sizing etc
5 Speakers & Sound - adding an external amp and changing the speakers

Cool I’ll have a look at Paints and Stickers early on then!

Connor

Can you do one about how to add a beer tap and peanut dispenser? Maybe part 6?

2 Likes

Possibly something in the future.
However these first few are simple mods that anyone can do at home. For a beer and peanut mod it may be a bit more involved and not something the average Joe can do.

Connor

I like to see a power mod for adding a switch, hopefully one that could safely shut down the Pi and turn it back on. I’ve looked into getting something like PowerBlock from PetRock who make retropie, but wasn’t sure how well it would fit inside the Picade console build,

I’ve done some simple mods on my PICADE, as mentioned in another thread, I changed the artwork to Connor’s Pacman design.

Since then I’ve also added a marquee light, changed some buttons, and added decals.

Internally there’s now a powered USB hub, which I run the lighting from, as I was already pushing my 2A power supply with just the screen, the Pi3 and the amplifier cranked up.

Here’s a list of what I added, which may be of interest/use:

Strip of 5v LED lights (bright white) with USB plug (£1.82)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301809580976

Pi3 Aluminium heatsinks (£1.59)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161982408521

Illuminated (5V) bezel buttons (£8.10 each)
I cannibalised an old USB cable to power these. The red (5v) and black (GND) wires in the USB cable were soldered to the red and black on the buttons, the other two wires from the button connect to the wires used by the buttons being replaced.

Replacement yellow joystick ball top, to maintain the pacman theme (£1.80)

Pacman Stencils (£2.99)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152106687966

I cut a marquee blanking panel from plywood, and spray painted it matt black, to prevent the marquee light shining down onto the screen. I used black insulation foam (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161697946665) along the back of the blanking panel to avoid any light seepage out the front.

They’re not very involved mods by any means, but were very simple to do and made my PICADE a bit more unique!

Only problem is I kind of want to make an Golden Axe themed one now!

2 Likes

Any more traction on this? This sounds exactly what I’d be interested in doing, particularly the neopixel stuff!!!

I am an amateur at this (just started last week), so know nothing about anything – I just have the passion to start :-)

Thanks!

+1 for any of the mod videos.