HK button problems with arcade cabinet

ArtcadeBA

Hi, i have a problem that i've been trying to solve for a couple of days. I am building an arcade cabinet
with a coins acceptor, i used mkarcadejoystick to connect to the pins
My problem is that i have to setup the select button as the coin acceptor(so that means that i dont have the select button anymore), but because of that i have to map the Hotkey to 1 of the 6 buttons (B,A,X,Y,L,R) used for games, but if i set it as the button L for example, i end up opening the retroarch when i press L and X at the same time.

Is there any way to add a dedicated HK button, or to set the GPIO2 or GPIO3 pins as a button?
because i can't exit games with out mapping it, and i cant map it to any other button without getting into those issues
or is there any other way around? maybe deactivate the RetroArch menu or key combos? Thanks in advance and sorry if this was already answered, im new in this forum

-RPI 3B+
-5.1V charger (works perfectly)
-retropie 4.7.1 Istalled through RPI imager

mitu

Usually the arcade emulators in RetroPie already map the Select button to Coin Insert in the emulated system, so you don't need to have a separate button for it. Just map your button as Select in EmulationStation, say yes to use it as a hotkey and that's it - it will work as Coin Insert in any arcade emulator and function as a hotkey enable button in RetroArch.

ArtcadeBA

@mitu Hi, the thing is that i need the arcade to work with coins, so when you enter a game, the only way to play is inserting a real coin, thats why i cant have a select button as a coin insert. the issue is that you cant exit games unless you have a hotkey, thats why i want to know if theres any way to have an extra button being only a HK button, or if i there is any way to separate the select button from the coin insert, making them two diferent inputs, one being a button as an HK and the other the coin acceptor as the coin insert. Sorry if my english isnt very good, im from Argentina

mitu

As far as I know, the mk_arcadejoystick_rpi driver doesn't support more than 12 inputs per device, so using an extra GPIO pin will not work with it (well, not without an addional MCP device). Maybe GPIONext can map any number of buttons and you can use it instead ?

ArtcadeBA

@mitu Thanks! ill try that when i can and see if it works

Lolonois

@artcadeba the mkarcadejoystick can do 13 buttons. The branch is called hotkeybtn.

To get this branch installed:

Navigate on your Rpi to /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary.
Open the file mkarcadejoystick.sh as root with an editor: `sudo nano mkarcadejoystick.sh

Edit line 16 from:

rp_module_repo="git https://github.com/cmitu/mk_arcade_joystick_rpi retropie"

to (note the suffix -hotkeybtn at the end):

rp_module_repo="git https://github.com/cmitu/mk_arcade_joystick_rpi retropie-hotkeybtn"

Save the file.

Then install the mkarcadejoystick from the retropie_setup.sh as usual (Manage Packages -> Manage Driver Packages -> mkarcadejoystick). It will build the hotkey / 13 button version.

Or go with GPIOnext, whatever you prefer.

HTH

mitu

@lolonois Good call. Now I know what the hotkeybtn is used for.