Sen Pi Arm-Based Hobby Board, Retro Game Console, and Media Slinging Thing

Where to buy:

Sen Pi With Fenek PC Game Controllers

This unit is a DIY kit. You install the OS on your own. In order to use your Sen Pi you must download and install Batocera:

Full instructions here: https://noticemesenpi.com/install-batocera-retroarch/

Batocera comes with a copy of Kodi for slinging media, however, if you do not want to use your Sen Pi for retro games, you can only install kodi by following these instructions: https://noticemesenpi.com/install-kodi-on-the-sen-pi/

The Sen Pi is more powerful than the Raspberry Pi 3 & 4 for emulation

• CPU: ARM Cortex A53 quad-core CPU @ 2.0 GHz
• GPU: Mali-450 @ 600MHz+
• 2GB RAM
• 16GB Internal Memory
• External SD Slot (for your OS, games, or media)
• 4 USB Ports
• Bluetooth 4
• Wifi b/g/n
• Ethernet
• HDMI (4k capable for media, 1080p for gaming)

Game Save Data – READ THIS

Before you rage and throw your controller, read this: Your save game files may disappear if the game and/or the system are improperly shut down (power loss, etc.).

For safety, we recommend using the “save state” feature built into the Sen Pi (keys can be mapped in the input menu). You can also enable an auto-save feature. 

Systems Supported by Batocera (DIY Install)

• NES, SNES, Gameboy, GBA, DS, N64 (limited support – Zelda, Mario, DK64 are great), PS 1 (limited support), PSP, Sega Genesis/Megadrive, 32X, TurboGrafx 16, DOSBox, ScummVM, Atari, Jaguar, Lynx, CoCo, GameGear, 3DO, Atari, Arcade, Neo Geo, Neo Geo Pocket, and more.

Fenek PC Controller

• 2.4 GHz Wireless (more reliable in testing than Bluetooth)
• Hold home button to toggle Xinput or DirectInput (may need to do this when turning on your system)
• Recognized as an Xbox controller in Xinput mode on PC
• 15 button plus D-pad and dual analog – L1, L2, R1, R2 not pictured
• 600 mAh rechargeable battery
• Micro USB
• When used with a PC, be sure the dongle is above the table – USB 2 is preferred, but USB 3 works

NOTE: The system works best with one wireless controller and wired controllers for the additional players.

We are in no way affiliated with the Batocera or RetroArch team.

Regarding the Batocera Software

Update cores at your own risk. The software has many emulator cores pre-installed. If you experiment by downloading additional cores and wish to restore the defaults, simple rename the “cores” folder to “cores.old”.

We highly recommend that you do not go into the menu and enable advanced options. This will only cause trouble and break things for most of you. The advanced tasks like adding new bios files and fussing with roms can be done through ssh, ftp, or over the network or even with an SD card.

For more info on how to use the software, please go here: https://batocera.org/

RetroArch Game backups or ROMs must be clean. Use “No Intro” roms. These are the only files the OS will index. You can still play hacks, broken roms, etc. by adding them to a playlist or by manually loading content from the folder. To do this simply select the option “load content”. However, life will be better if you use “No Intro” roms. There are even archives of them on archive.org.

Installing Games over the network

You have access to Batocera over the network; it’s just a simple share. On Windows or MAC you can just navigate to \\BATOCERA and you will see a share folder. In windows simply do this:

• Press start and type RUN
• type \\BATOCERA and press enter
• You will see a Batocera share folder
• Open this and you will see various folders
• Put your roms into the correct folders

It’s crazy easy.

Installing Games from SD or USB Flash Drive

• Copy good ROMs to an the SC or TF card then insert the card into the Sen Pi. You will see a folder for roms. Just put them into the correct folders per system if using the SD card (already there).
• Then you can scan folders in Batocera.
• Navigate to the root of your storage and look for a folder called “media”
• The SD card may have a funny name – select it
• It is best to import one folder at a time (if you separated ROMs into folders)
• Scan a few folders
• Roms that are good copies should show up in your database now

Accessing System Folders or using ssh can be dangerous
(Advanced Users Only – We cannot refund users who change system files and can’t figure out how to fix their issues)