A DIY arcade fighting stick powered by Raspberry Pi that can also be used on a PC.
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I've wanted to own my own arcade machine for as long as I can remember and I'm guessing most of you are the same
Cost and size have always been the restricting factor though, and that's where I think this comes in
A diy arcade Joystick from GeekPi, the kit comes in two forms
One including the Raspberry Pi 3 and one without for those who want to supply their own
Links to both are down in the description below
GeekPi was kind enough to send me out the kit to review without the Raspberry Pi as I've already got a couple lying around
Included with the kit is a zippy ball Joystick
8 large arcade buttons with inbuilt micro switches
2 small arcade buttons for start and select the GeekPi Usb controller Board a pair of 2 inch 3 watt speakers
The laser cut acrylic pieces for the housing
Rubber feet
A 16 gig MicroSD Card and plenty of screws cables and wires
Constructing the kit was a little bit of a challenge
After putting components on the wrong way I've slowly learnt that the provided instructions get clues to the correct orientation
RTFM
All up though the whole process took around an hour even with my mistake
So if you do it right the first time you're probably only going to look at about a 40-minute job
For those interested you can see the whole process over on my personal channel up above or down below and
Here's the unit fully constructed
You've got the joystick and 6 buttons up top and two smaller buttons at the front for start and select
Across the left is an opening for the access to the network interface and three remaining usb ports
One of the USB ports is used to communicate with the GeekPI controller
So no messy gpio connections to deal with
Over on the right side is two larger buttons use the volume up and volume down
We'll touch on this a little bit later
And finally on the rear a 2 3watt speakers and port access to HDMI and Microusb power
The difference with a GeekPi board is the in build amplify that compare the two speakers
Sound is output from the Raspberry Pi thru a three and a half mil cable
After construction was complete it was time to test out the unit
Booting up from the included 16 gigabyte MicroSD Card showed an older version of retro preinstalled
Great for those who just want to jump in
But for me It was easier to launch Etcher and write the latest version of RetroPie directly to the Microsd card
Even with the latest RetroPie it still took another hour and a half to update
This is of course due to all the updates between now and the latest site release available
I should be able to play around with this eventually
Next time install the experimental package RetroPie manager which allows for transferring roms through a web browser
So it's much easier than FTP or Samba Network transfers
Follow along with my ultimate retropie set-up guide above or down below for all the best tips and tricks for a fresh install
After transferring a few ROMs through RetroPie Rom manager
I have to say that it felt really awesome to navigate with the arcade stick and buttons fully configured
But alas there was another issue. No sound through the speakers
Pressing the side volume buttons produced nothing so once again, I jumped into the retrofire configuration screen
Here I changed the audio from "auto" to "force three-and-a-half millimeter headphone jack"
Save the configuration and did a quick reboot. Now we're cooking with gas
Except that I realized quickly that I'm not the Street Fighter champion I once used to be
I'll be needing a little more practice before attempting to beat this one again
So one of the things I loved about the diy GeekPi arcade Joystick. Well building it yourself is one of those things that takes a little while
But in the end feels like an accomplishment, the buttons aren't the best but still get the job done
There's always the possibility of upgrading them yourself later down the track
The ability to access the MicroSD Card on the bottom is an option that some forget to include. Not here though and
Lastly you can use this with the windows PC Arcade Joystick too with the usb extension cables.
How awesome is that?
With everything, that's awesome. Though, there's also some things that I didn't love
The speaker quality is not that great
They produce sound which is a plus but the sound isn't the best by far. Let's have a listen
If you're connected to a HDMI monitor without sound then this is better than nothing I guess
Don't forget to check out the Amazon links in the description below for both of the diy kits and some other things you might find interesting as well
So don't forget to check those out
What's your experience with arcade fighting stick leave me a comment down below and let me know
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