Plasma buttons software (not RetroPie)

Support
1

Hi all,

I recently bought the 10 button plasma kit for use with my Picade. I’ve got to say they work great when using RetroPie and really look the business (although I did have to use the latest RetroPie nightly build to get it all working).

I’ve now been experimenting on a new SD card with Batocera, which I believe is far superior to RetroPie in terms of user experience and speed of emulation. I even get 60fps on Saturn emulation with no overclocking!

I can’t however get the plasma buttons to install using the guide provided by Pimoroni. Is there any way to install the plasma software under Batocera? I’m familiar and happy with SSH, etc… but have very little experience in Linux, let alone creating custom install scripts. I believe Batocera is a fork of RecalBox if that is of any help.

Grateful for any help anybody can offer.

PJ

2

If it helps they are APA102 addressable RGB LEDs. You don’t have to use the Plasma Software to light them up.
I believe they are wired to the Button 7 and Button 8 pins. Which use GPIO 14 and 15.
Picade X HAT at Raspberry Pi GPIO Pinout

3

Thank you @alphanumeric for your relpy

That has certainly helped somewhat in my understanding, but due to my inexperience I’m still rather unsure how I can use them with Batocera. It seems Batocera is not Raspbian based, such as RetroPie is, so I don’t know how to progress further.

I suppose this is a question better asked in the Batocera forum, but has anybody any experience of using APA102 LED’s in the Batocera or RecalBox OS?

As always, any help is greatly appreciated

PJ

4

One option is to wire the plasma lights up to a Plasma 2040. Then tuck that away in your Picade cabinet.