Little Bird
Picade X HAT
Turn your Raspberry Pi into a retro games console! Picade X HAT includes joystick and button inputs, a 3W I2S DAC/amplifier, and soft power switch. Nice! ...
Turn your Raspberry Pi into a retro games console! Picade X HAT includes joystick and button inputs, a 3W I2S DAC/amplifier, and soft power switch. Nice!
Picade X HAT, our latest version, has all the same great features as the original Picade HAT but now has no-fuss female Dupont connectors to hook up your joystick and buttons.
Simply pop Picade X HAT onto your Pi, plug your Pi power supply into the micro-USB connector on the HAT (it back-powers your Pi through the GPIO, so no need for a separate power supply), wire up your controls, and install our driver! It's ideal for your own DIY arcade cabinet builds, or for interfaces that need big, colourful buttons and sound.
We'd recommend also picking up one of our new Picade wiring looms to go with Picade X HAT. It has all the cables you'll need to connect up buttons and a joystick (with 5-pin connector) to Picade X HAT.
Features
- I2S audio DAC with 3W amplifier (mono) and push-fit terminals
- Safe power on/off system with tactile power button and LED
- Micro-USB connector for power (back-powers your Pi)
- 4-way digital joystick inputs
- 6x player button inputs
- 4x utility button inputs
- 1x soft power switch input
- 1x power LED output
- Breakout pins for power, I2C, and 2 additional buttons
- Picade HAT pinout
- Compatible with Raspberry Pi 3B+, 3, 2, B+, A+, Zero, and Zero W
The I2S DAC blends both channels of digital audio from the Raspberry Pi into a single mono output. This is then passed through a 3W amplifier to power a connected speaker.
The board also features a soft power switch that allows you turn your Pi on and off safely without risk of SD card corruption. Tap the connected button to start up, and press and hold it for 3 seconds to fully shutdown and disconnect power.
Software
We've put together a simple one-line installer that'll get everything set up on your Picade X HAT, the controls, safe shutdown, and audio. Open a terminal and type curl https://get.pimoroni.com/picadehat | bash to run the installer. You'll need to reboot once the installation is complete, if it doesn't prompt you to do so.
Our software does not support Raspbian Wheezy
Notes
With micro-USB power connected through Picade X HAT you'll need either to tap the connected power button or the button marked "switch" on the HAT to power on your Pi.
Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- breakout
- A breakout is a small circuit board that makes a tiny or hard-to-solder component easier to connect to with standard pins. It matters because this OLED module can be wired into a microcontroller project without needing to solder directly to the display’s fine contacts.
- DAC
- A digital-to-analogue converter turns numbers from the microcontroller into a real analogue voltage. It matters if you want to generate simple waveforms, audio-style signals, or variable control voltages rather than just on/off outputs.
- GPIO
- General-purpose input/output pins are microcontroller pins you can set in software to read signals, switch devices on and off, or connect to peripherals. The number of GPIO pins matters because it limits how many buttons, LEDs, sensors, and other parts you can wire directly to the board.
- I2C
- I2C is a two-wire communication bus used by many sensors and small modules. It matters because several I2C devices can share the same two wires, but each device needs a compatible address and your controller must support I2C.
- I2S
- I2S is a digital audio interface used to send sound data between chips, such as from a microcontroller to an audio amplifier or DAC. It matters if your project needs cleaner digital audio output than a basic buzzer or PWM signal can provide.
- LED
- A light-emitting diode is a small electronic component that lights up when current flows through it in the correct direction. In this kit, LEDs create the flashing effect, so polarity and correct soldering matter for the project to work.
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Brands
Raspberry Pi
Related Tutorials
Free guides on learn.littlebird.com.au
