Hello all. I bought a Picade around January and have put it together using the tutorial video and love the thing, but it does have some issues. I could use some help resolving them please.
It has to do with the wiring and buttons. It’s going to sound weird and sporadic, so please bare with me.
When I boot up the machine, everything seems fine, I’m using a Pi 3, so it goes through its thing with Retropie, the Picade PCB does its checks, but every now and then, it won’t detect the inputs from the buttons on the unit! I have to lift the joystick/6-button panel off the front of the Picade and wave it around like I’m a magician in order for it to register correctly on the PCB (when I press the button, the LED light on the PCB lights up and corresponds with the buttons being pressed, which is how I’m testing the buttons).
My initial suspicion was that I wired the buttons wrong, given that there is a bit of spaghetti wiring in there, so I went and rewired a good chunk of it to straighten it out. Even redid some of the wire ends with wire strippers and cutters to make the job and fit better inside the PCB terminals, and STILL have this problem! Sometimes, it will boot up just fine, and I can get into a game, and I’ll be playing, and then WHAM! I’ll lose ALL button functionality right in the middle of a game! Argh! I can’t tell you how frustrating that is.
My hypothesis is that in certain positions with the joystick and buttons and wiring and terminals, it sometimes gets too close and causes a ground fault, which shorts out everything in the button connections which is why it doesn’t register. But the PCB is bolted down in the appropriate place (I went through great trouble to get it there!). It just seems so strange. I figured I can come on here after much trying to solve it on my own and haven’t not being able to. HELP!
Other things I’ve done: I tried updating the PCB firmware itself: https://github.com/pimoroni/Picade-Sketch/blob/master/update/README.md. Still having the same issues. I ordered a replacement wiring loom and it’s here just in case I need to replace the wiring and think it’s shot wiring. Any other input would be appreciated.