Zewwy PiCade Updates
It’s been a while since I completed my PiCade now a lot can happen in a year, and sadly I have not done more guides around the OS lakka I really hope to provide more of these for anyone who is simply running Lakka on whatever hardware they choose. Since the OS is compiled for many SOCs as well as the plentiful x86/64 architecture the hardware choices are fruitful.
Anyway, so let me cover the first couple things… Hardware Updates….
Hardware Updates
1) I had recently brought my arcade to a local Anti-social hosted by non other than the amazing local Skullspace. (If you are in Winnipeg check these guys out, they are amazing. And funny in the main slides all three people are friends I know well.) While there wasn’t many places to put it I decided to test the build by placing it right ontop of a subwoofer/amplifer (yeah test it hardcore), while it did last the majority of the night, by the end it had started to flicker the screen on n off. a good wack would usually bring it back (some poor connection somewhere). I had intially thought it maybe self built power extender for the screen board, but after bypassing it I was still experiencing the issue. Having everything on one board, made pulling it out for diagnostics a breeze. and sure enough… simply checking all the connectors, a loose piece was found, I’m not sure exactly what this piece was (googling the numbers on seem it maybe an inductor) either way it had one leg that was clearly broken from its mating surface. So I soldered it back, but wanted to ensure it hold this time, I didn’t have a shrink tube big enough so I simply grabbed some plastic wrap (food wrap) and gave it a good wrap up….
and sure enough it’s been great since. Not sure I’ll put it on a subwoofer again, but it did otherwise old up great! 😀 That’s a pretty good build I’d say…
2) as you can see from the above picture I also moved the screen input selector (still annoyed this board has this considering the other input types are not even on the board (but I believe they use the same logic IC regardless to save costs) to the top, so it’s clickable using a toothpick (I hope to 3D print a button).
3) I had my buddy at Skullspace help me create an acrylic front protector since I had to pull the LCD from the glass cover and digitizer that normally comes with the screen (this can be seen as a plus or minus, I think in this case it was a plus cause the glass was cracked, but the LCD screen was fine) which worked out for my build.
4) I wanted a way to keep the “lid” shut since it was designed to lift up to take an iPad in and out, which is nice for my all on one board design as well, but only when I need to do work, or switch SD cards for trying different OS’s. Since there was no build in latching mechanism I decided to use a but of trick magic I learnt from watching a bunch of Chris Ramsay on Youtube, you know the guy who opens all the puzzles. In this case I first thought similar to the same technique I used to hold the speakers in… but then that would be ugly, it worked great for the speakers since it’s from behind and you can’t see it… so instead puzzle magic I drilled 4 tiny holes in the lid and carefully on each side making sure not to go through the side vinyl.
Then using a piece from a paper clip… and a magic from a fish tank cleaning kit…
I placed the clip in the Lid hole till it’s completely hidden, then shut the lid, and use the magnet to pull the pin out into the side piece, thus locking the lid on both sides…
as you can see I’m lifting it right up the front edge which normally would open and pivot on the rear pins but with my secret hidden pins its locked and besides the tiny bit of play as you can see, it works great. (I could have attempted a bit thicker of a paper clip, but then I risk it rubbing on the walls of the holes I drilled and the magnet may not have the power to beat the friction)
As you can also tell the new acrylic is reflective but protects the LCD screen, I also attached speaker covers, and the pot handle for the volume control. I hope to get edges 3D printed as well as the front bezel which is just a grey cardboard right now.
Now on the back is nothing more than the removable Battery which operates the unit.
Software Updates
Now Lakkas made some updates since my build which is running Rpi-2.1.x The current release is on 2.4.x so i got hopefully we get some nice updates, first thing I did was test the new build on a standalone MicroSD to avoid buggering up my current build, now my main SD card is 16 Gigs vs 4, which is ironically 4 times the size. Now I have to figure out how to install the newer version while migrating most of my settings (Joy stick bindings, and game listings and Images) with the least amount of work… mhnmmm Neat!
I’m going to follow option B!
“Manual updates
- Download the latest img.gz file corresponding to your hardware from here.
- Place this file in your Storage partition, in the .update folder, either using SAMBA or by mounting it
- Boot or reboot your hardware.
You should see some messages about the upgrade process. After some seconds, your system will reboot.”
First thing I thought I’ll use my MicroSD to USB adapter and just use file explorer, hahah you silly goose Windows isn’t for user friendly, and of course what I mean by this is lakka will use linux partitions (like ext2,3 maybe 4) and clearly not MS based NTFS, and MS doesn’t naively support such FS. This requires additional software, which I don’t want to install. I also left all IODD device at work so there are all my bootable images and I sadly don’t have my own PXE (Yet)…. great OK so there goes almost all my direct mounting options, so i guess network based transfer it will be…. I reallllly wanted to DD the card as is Just in case the upgrade shits the bed, and I can simply DD my back img back onto the MicroSD, but since I can’t do that now… alright fine….
Downloaded linux mint, created VM, booted VM, installed Linux mint, atatched USB controller, passed through USB device (MicroSD to USB), auto mounted, and used a terminal to make my backup like a movie tech nerd…
I can also use this to inject the Lakka img, I do have it on my machine but don’t have file passthrough on the vmware console, simplest thing would be another USB passthough but I’m out of USB devices right now. So I used an network share, I wasn’t sure at first which the “storage partition” was but made a fair assumption:
K that was quick, unmount from VM, remove from host USB port, and place SD card in PiCade… and lets see what happens (at least I have a backup now) 😀
Now when I booted it, it did say unpacking, and did update, and did retain my playlists, nice new icons for each item, very nice.
But i lost all my core key map bindings, and rom remap bindings… that’s annoying. My Arcade/MAME games did run with the normal playlist, core changes? haven’t exactly figured that out yet. Since I recently picked up the Genesis Mini, I put that whole playlist on here :D.