New Picade, a few issues with assembly, screen and cooling

Picade
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Hi,

first of all: thanks to Pimeroni for this nice new kit! Despite some issues, I really enjoyed putting this thing together and can’t wait to finalize it later.

  1. The manual was quite clear on what general screw type to use, but I’m puzzled about a selection of shorter screws + the 4x M2.5s without any notches that were left when I was done. I suppose these where intended to attach the display driver board to the acrylic piece? (that’s where I ended up putting them for now)

  2. The build ended up a bit ‘crooked’ at the bottom and the back: Not really visible, but the front left rubber feet wasn’t touching the surface, which made the unit quite wobbly. Also, the backplate cutout for the screen control panel came in too high, colliding with the bottom of the panel and would bulge out because of this. I’m about to reassemble it soon, so I would be glad about any hints on how to prevent this. Current plan is to partially reassemble it while it sits on a hard surface.

  3. After putting the screen together, I’ve noticed some very distracting backlight spill on the upper right corner. It got a bit worse when the backplate was on. Testing it without the acrylic, it still has that distracting light spill. Does this mean the shielding got bend during my build? Is there anything I can do about it and if no, do I have options to obtain a replacement?

  4. Since I’m going with a Pi 3 in my build, I’m a bit concerned with cooling it while the Picade hat is installed. There is barely any space to fit the regular passive pi heatsinks, so I’m using a flat copper heatsink for now. Temps are ok, but I would prefer to overclock a little, any reccomendation where a fan would be most effective or if it’s worth considering to extend the distance between the pi and the picade hat?

Thanks for reading and any advice!

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I’m glad you’re liking the Picade! Hopefully I can answer most of those questions. :-)

  1. You’re spot on with those low-profile screws. They were included at the eleventh hour as an alternative to the usual plastic M2.5 ones as they don’t bend the bracket quite as much. We’ll include mention of how to use them in our online and video tutorials that are coming very soon. :-)

  2. We’ve found that loosening the screws (and hence brackets) a little and then tightening them up again can get rid of any slight squint on the cabinet.

  3. Could you take a quick photo of the light-bleed, please? We can certainly replace the display if it’s faulty.

  4. A small 5V fan fitted to the grille on the back door (sucking air out) could help to draw air through and out of the cabinet. A Pi 3B+ might also be worth thinking about as it has much better thermal performance.

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Thanks for your answers!

  1. Yay!

  2. I tried, but this did not really fix the issue unfortunately. But I’m in the middle of partially reassembling with the feet touching the table and it’s working out pretty well so far.

  3. Finally got around to take that photo. It wasn’t that easy to catch on the camera, but the visible light bleed shown on the middle right side appears much brighter to the human eye.

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  1. Thanks for the advice - I even bought a Pi3+ with the cabinet. Just wanted to check if I could put one of my unused Pi3s to good use instead.