New from Sprixels · ETA Jan '27
Nostalgic hardware teardowns, re-invented.
Real gaming hardware, carefully taken apart and rebuilt as a wall-mounted display that lights up, plays video and tells its own story. Handmade in the UK.
Every teardown module is built from genuine original circuitry, housings and parts, rescued from faulty, damaged or surplus units. No replicas.
A built-in screen, speaker and 112 individually controlled LEDs turn a piece of gaming history into something that moves, glows and plays.
The Lumicade web app lets you load your own photos and video, design light shows and decide exactly what plays, and when.
The teardown
Each module takes an original console that’s faulty, damaged or simply surplus, like cartridge-only games without a box, and gives it a second life. Boards, buttons, screens and shells are mounted across layered, laser-cut acrylic so you can see exactly how it was made.
Every unit is built by hand, so no two are quite the same, but each unit is given the same love and attention.
8
laser-cut acrylic layers100%
original partsUK
handmadeInterchangeable modules
Modules come as hardware teardowns or custom dioramas, and each one fits either the Lumicade Active Frame or Passive Frame. Swapping takes seconds, with no tools.
Slide the four D-pad stand-offs on the back of the frame.
The magnets let go and a spring pushes the module out to meet you.
Drop in the next one. A built-in ID chip tells the Active Frame which module it is and loads its settings automatically.
The full Lumicade experience: a live display, lighting and audio, all controlled from the web app. Swap another Lumicade module in to change the look.
From £350
Every module looks gorgeous on its own and is supplied in a passive frame. Mount it on its own, or alongside an Active Frame for all the thrills.
From £180
The Lumicade web app
Every Active Frame ships with bespoke, copyright-free content already loaded. Then the web app hands you the controls, from any laptop or phone.
Load a Sprixels default project and tweak it to your heart’s content, or build your own from scratch.
Upload your own images, build them into playlists with transition effects, and choose when each one appears.
Pulses, fades, solid colours and rainbow wheels. Chain effects together in the timeline and set the conditions they run under.
Upload any MP4 and the encoder converts it to Lumicade’s own format, playing back at 23–30 fps depending on the era you pick.
Nothing is uploaded to our servers. Your clips live in your browser and on the frame’s own SD card.
Lumicade generators
A built-in suite generates fresh content on the fly: sunset parallax scenes, starfields, palette cycling, shoot-’em-ups, 3D racers and music visualisers. Your wall is never short of something worth looking at.
● Parallax scenes
Layered sunsets and landscapes scrolling at different speeds, the classic trick that gave flat 16-bit worlds their depth.
● Palette cycling
Waterfalls, fireflies and shimmering light, animated purely by rotating colours, just as the old masters did it.
● Raycasting Engine
Wander a pseudo-3D gallery built with the same technique that powered the first wave of first-person games.
● Music visualiser
A neon sun pulsing over a retro grid, reacting to whatever is playing.
● Shoot-em-up Engine
Multiple levels, parallax scrolling and countless bullets, explosions and lasers. All the nostalgic shooter nightmares you remember.
● Raster Road Engine
Driving rain, twisting tracks and futuristic cars - All the raster effects that allowed games such as Road Rash etc to run
Two built-in terminals
Two customisable terminals generate a constant stream of gaming history, so your Lumicade can run for days without showing the same thing twice.
15 classic machines and thousands of facts: best-sellers, famous flops, technical diagrams, developer showcases and head-to-heads with the rivals of the day.
How did they pull that off? Parallax scrolling, palette cycling, raycasting, double buffering and more, explained across 300+ pages of facts and diagrams.
Specifications
Designed and built in-house, from the custom mainboard to the laser-cut layers.
Frame: 277 × 277 × 43.5 mm (50 mm including hanger and cable space).
Display plaque: 277 × 135 × 13.5 mm (20 mm including hanger and cable space).
Newhaven 2.8″ LCD, 320 × 240 pixels at 60 Hz, up to 4,096 colours on screen at once.
Some modules use part of the screen: the Game Boy module runs at 270 × 240.
112 embedded SK6812 Mini LEDs across 8 independently controlled layers.
MAX98357 amplifier driving a Visaton BF32 speaker, 2 W max.
Custom-designed PCB with an embedded Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W running at 284 MHz, polyfuse protected.
2 A audio driver and built-in SD card reader with 32 GB storage. Specification subject to change.
2.4 GHz Wi-Fi for full control from the Lumicade web app.
5 V, 3 A max via USB-C.
Power supply not included.
Magnetically held, with a spring-eject release. Each has an ID chip so the Active Frame loads the right settings automatically.
Up to 8 laser-cut acrylic layers. Modules are permanently sealed and not designed to be opened.
Teardown modules use only original circuitry, housings and parts. Each is hand built, so expect small variations between units.
Register your interest
Lumicade is in its final stages of development. Leave your email for launch news, first access when pre-orders open and a 20% off early bird offer.
Our handmade 3D pixel artworks are getting an upgrade too - stay put...
Who we are
Our love of pixel art started in the late 80's and has continued to this day. Starting as a range of small game programming ventures and pixel art experiments, Sprixels.com has been our registered domain for some 15+ years.
In 2023 we officially set our roots in creating unique 3D shadow box based pixel art works; you could say it took us a while to get here... but the wait was worth it!
Gaming in the late 80's and 90's has had a lasting impression on us at Sprixels. Its simplified interpretation of complex objects, its vibrant colour scapes, and its immediate nostalgia hit have hooked us and never let go. We take great pride in creating unique stand out pieces that bring back those retro vibes. Emphasising depth through layered pixel art adds a new dimension to its 2D on screen rendition, providing a real parallax effect that adds its own natural shading to objects behind. Photos struggle to do the effect real justice!
Each of our items is created by hand in the UK via a mix of technologies and patience. Utilising laser cutting, 3D printing, Digital printing and a dab of glue we lovingly craft each item to look the best we can make it. We take great pride in our work and want you to truly enjoy our creations as much as we love putting them together. Enjoy!
Got something in mind you'd like creating? Take a look at our work and get in touch.
