Assembling Picade Max (1/4)

2024-12-26 | By Pimoroni

License: See Original Project Raspberry Pi SBC

Guide by Pimoroni

This tutorial will help you assemble Picade Max. This is a bit of a mammoth ‎guide, so we'll be splitting it into several parts.‎

Part 1 <- you are here

Part 2‎

Part 3‎

Part 4‎

What you'll need

ESSENTIAL

A Picade Max kit!‎

You'll also need the following:‎

A Raspberry Pi 5. If you want to use an older Pi with this kit that's also ‎possible (as long as it is one of the ones with a 40 pin header).‎
A microSD card

NICE TO HAVE

An Active Cooler to keep your Pi nice and cool.‎
A NVMe Base if you want to add some super-fast solid-state storage.‎
A USB keyboard for configuring the software / connecting to wifi.‎

Preparation

It will probably take somewhere between two and four hours to build your ‎Picade Max (the current speedrun record is 1h 59m). It's a big build so we'd ‎encourage you to take your time, enjoy yourself and don't feel like you need ‎to rush through it all in one go. A large space, like a table or floor, with a soft ‎covering is an ideal build space. There's a couple of points where it's useful to ‎have an extra, friendly, pair of hands on standby. You’ll also need a ‎Phillips/crosshead screwdriver and a small flat blade screwdriver (2.5mm or ‎smaller). If you don't have those already, you might want to grab an ‎excellent iFixit driver kit.‎

Contents of the kit

Here's a complete list of everything included in the box! If you're missing ‎anything, please drop us an email at support@pimoroni.com .‎

IN THE MAIN BOX

‎19 black powder coated wooden cabinet panels, labelled A to N‎
‎4 acrylic panels (1 and 2 player console panels and two marquee ‎panels - one of these is translucent).‎
‎3 pieces of cardboard artwork (1 and 2 player console pieces, and a ‎marquee piece)‎
Black cardboard screen surround
‎19" display panel‎

FIXINGS AND SPEAKERS BOX

‎15 plastic brackets (for attaching the panels together)‎
‎2 3" speakers‎
A bundle of cable ties for tidying up the wires
Rubber feet
A Picade Max bolt pack containing many black metal screws, nuts, and ‎standoffs (you'll use M2.5, M3, and M4 sizes in this build).‎
A Diffuser Standoff Kit - this contains some tiny M2 fixings, which you'll ‎only need if you're planning on using a Galactic Unicorn as your ‎marquee.‎

ELECTRONICS AND GUBBINS BOX

Bag containing Display driver boards (with cables)‎
Picade Max display driver cover
Picade Max Audio board
Picade Max Controller board
Picade Max Power HAT
‎9 pin JST-PH cable for connecting the LCD keypad
‎20cm Qw/ST cable for connecting the Encoder board‎
Booster header for Power HAT
‎12V barrel jack power supply‎
PICO-8 code‎
Stickers!‎

BUTTONS AND LOOMS BOX

‎11 x 24mm arcade buttons‎
‎14 X 30mm arcade buttons‎
Illuminated power button
Picade Max Encoder board
Black dial/knob
Picade Max LCD Keypad board with black keycaps
Keypad Legend (labels for the LCD Keypad board)‎
Picade Max wiring loom - this includes cables to connect buttons, ‎joysticks, and the power button

JOYSTICKS AND CABLES BOX

‎2 arcade joysticks‎
‎2 joystick balls‎
‎2 black plastic collar/dust covers for joysticks‎
‎30cm barrel jack to barrel jack cable for connecting the Power HAT to ‎the display driver board
‎30cm micro-HDMI to HDMI cable for connecting the Pi to the display ‎driver board
‎2 50cm USB A to C cables for connecting the Audio and Controller ‎boards

Cabinet assembly tips

First up, here's some general rules (more like guidelines, amirite) to keep in ‎mind throughout the build.‎

The wooden panels are laser cut from MDF by us and then powder ‎coated by a friendly, local Sheffield company. This process can result in ‎some textural variation on the back of the panels, and you might also ‎notice some holes on the inside that don't go all the way through - ‎these holes are where the panels are hung up to be powder coated. ‎There should be an obvious good side and a 'label' side with markings ‎and text on. The label side will always be on the inside of your Picade, ‎so any patchiness on this side won't show once your Picade is ‎assembled.‎
The wooden panels are labelled A - N so you can identify them easily, ‎and we'll be adding to them to the build in alphabetical order.‎
Some parts of the cabinet assembly need there to be a bit of give in ‎the cabinet, so it's a good idea not to tighten the screws and nuts that ‎go through the brackets to fasten the wooden panels together fully ‎until the end of the build.‎
The heads of the screws should always be on the outside of your ‎Picade cabinet, and the nuts/threaded ends of the screws should be on ‎on the inside.‎

Screw sizes help

There are four sizes of nuts, screws, and spacers in this build, M2, M2.5, M3 ‎and M4. These are all metric bolt sizes, and the number indicates the outer ‎diameter of the screw thread in mm (and the diameter of the hole it will fit ‎through) - so M2 has the smallest diameter and M4 has the largest.‎

The bags of nuts and bolts are labelled 1 to 6 to help you identify which ones ‎you need for each step (you can thank the Picade Max beta testers for this ‎convenience).‎

Here is a handy cheat sheet that will help you identify all the screws, nuts ‎and standoffs that are included. A print copy will also be included with your ‎Picade Max!‎

Picade Max fixings cheat sheet

Attaching the feet to the base

For this section you'll need:‎

Wooden panel A
Rubber feet

To start, you'll need to find the big black wooden panel marked A - this will ‎become the base of your Picade.‎

base_1

You'll also need the rubber feet. They look like this:‎

feet_2

Flip panel A over so the 'good' side without the labels is facing you. Then peel ‎the feet off their backing and stick one near each of the four corners, ‎avoiding the mounting holes.‎

holes_3

If you'd like to add more support to the middle of the cabinet or need to ‎account for particularly uneven terrain (hi EMF) you can add more feet, we ‎included extras.‎

extra_4

Now the base won't scratch your desk whilst you carry out the rest of the ‎assembly!‎

Attaching cabinet panel A

Locate the bags of M3 screws and nuts, they should look something like this.‎

bag_5

Note that there's two lengths of M3 screws here, 12mm and 18mm. You'll be ‎using the shorter 12mm ones for most of the cabinet assembly, set the ‎longer ones aside until later.‎

For this section, you'll need:‎

‎1x L-shaped plastic bracket
‎1x M3 12mm screw‎
‎1x M3 nut‎

need_6

Use a M3 screw and nut through the centre hole to attach a bracket to the ‎centre of panel A. Note that the single holes in the plastic brackets are quite ‎a tight fit, this may require a bit of determined rotation with your driver.‎

driver_7

Attaching cabinet panel B

Next, you'll need:‎

Wooden panel B
‎1x L-shaped plastic bracket
‎3x M3 12mm screw‎
‎3x M3 nut‎

next_8

Attach a bracket to it (again using the centre hole).‎

attach_9

Use two more screws and nuts to secure panel B to panel A, using the two ‎remaining holes in the first bracket.‎

secure_10

Here's what it looks like from the other side.

side_11 ‎

Attaching cabinet panel C

Next, we'll be attaching panel C to the other long edge of panel A - this will ‎become the front edge of your cabinet. For this part you'll need:‎

Wooden panel C
‎2x L-shaped plastic bracket
‎6x M3 12mm screw‎
‎6x M3 nut‎=

attaching_12

First attach the brackets to panel C, using the central holes:‎

brackets_13

Then use the remaining holes to attach panel C to panel A. You should now ‎have something like this:‎

panel_14

Here it is viewed from the front.‎

front_15

Attaching side panel D (and speaker)‎

Now we'll be adding panel D (that's the right-side panel, if you're looking at ‎Picade Max from the front). For this part you'll need:‎

Wooden panel D
‎4x L-shaped plastic bracket
‎1x speaker‎
‎9x M3 12mm screw‎
‎9x M3 nut‎
‎2x M4 screws‎
‎2x M4 nuts‎

adding_16

‎(all the chunky M4 nuts and bolts should be in bag 1).

bag2_17

First add four brackets to panel D. Note that with the middle bracket, we're ‎attaching the side of the brackets with two holes first.‎

brackets_18

Next bolt the speaker over the grille using the M4 nuts and screws, you only ‎need to put bolts through two of the four mounting holes on the speaker. ‎We'd suggest orienting the side where the wires attach towards the front of ‎the cabinet for tidiness of wiring.‎

brackets_19

Use M3 nuts and screws to attach side panel D to the rest of your cabinet ‎assembly. The wooden tabs should slot together at the front corner to keep ‎everything nice and square.‎

panel_20