@sugarfree thanks! Good to know there is a way to do this from the terminal window. I ended up following the instructions from this video to reset the emulation station input configuration for the controllers.

This looks realy cool! I dont know if i can use it in the future, but greate work @alexp !

@mtm81 Thanks for the replies up to this point - I'm pleased to say that I've got it fixed (well kind of).

With my previous setup I've confirmed that the ALL of the default settings I was putting into the pi (alsamixer, retropi config, config.txt, autorun, even going so far in the config.txt to turn off the HDMI audio all together etc) to force it to use headphones - all were working but ONLY after a certain point in the boot sequence. Up to that point, because I had the HDMI plugged in (for video only) the system was detecting that HDMI connection and setting the ouput audio to be HDMI. Once one the files config files was THEN loaded, the Headphone output would then take over.
The issue was always that, my file which was being used to control the audio volume output of the device - was being loaded BEFORE those other files took over, meaning my file was effectively turning the volume up and down on an output I wasn't using.

I've therefore changed my output to HMDI for audio output as well, and changed my cabling from using the headphone jack on the PI, to the output jack on the HDMI controller.
This works absolutely fine and works first time.

So although this issue is solved, the underlying reason still remains - if you want to use the headphone output for audio - that only is 'forced' so far into the boot sequence.

@sleve_mcdichael I'm using a fork of retropie that doesn't allow this, well it allows it it just defaults every settings changed on reboot, so I need to do this via the hardware

Hi,

Just to wrap-up this post.

I've built a prototype (image bellow) and I'm trying to see if everything is correctly positioned and usable. I end up using just a hotkey instead of dedicated admin buttons.

I'll open a new post to discuss it in the relevant area.

Thank you.

control_panel1.jpg

@Davehhf said in EmulationStation crash when pressing x button:

How do I install emulationstation-dev?

RetroPie-Setup > manage packages > experimental packages > emulationstation-dev

@mahoneyt944
Hey man, no nothing worked, dont know why it didnt let me "enter" any key. It just didnt do anything an no no key was stuck or sticky ;)
Anyway, thanks to the help of Mr sleve_mcdichael i managed to do it. Yay :D
Thanks for you as well.
Big up

No, there is no such configuration available - the screensaver exits on any input (unless you have enabled the 'Screensaver control' option, when they either scroll or start the game).

From what is advertised the kit should work.
If the "Zero-Delay" encoders (can not judge if they are genuine or clones) put you off (e.g. being not so zero-delay) you can also run your setup with two MCP23017 (GPIO extender) and via GPIO.

If I would build your setup I would provide the left/right flipper a dedicated pin.
With the kit, as well as with MCP23017 you have 16 switches. Usually 4 are needed for the stick axes, and 9 for the most common push button functions: A, B, X, Y, TL, TR, Select, Start, Hotkey. So you have in any case three spare switches.

The third could be "Tilt" triggered by a gyroscopic sensor. (sometimes Space-key on keyboard based pinball games)

Mapping of the buttons can be done on a per game basis for many emulators -out-of-the-box- (retroarch-based and amiberry). And for any other emulator this can be done via runcommand-onstart.sh / runcommand-end.sh [1] in combination for example with xboxdrv.

Sorry, a lot to digest for a new joiner. But no worries, I assume you will master it by time.

TL;DR: Two separate pins/inputs for the flippers.

Happy making.

[1] https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand/#runcommand-scripts

You can use a similar solution to the one in this post, where the requirement was to have the Pause function being triggered without a hotkey.

PyGame has the pygame.event and pygame.joystick modules to process inputs.

Just a quick update, and maybe a helpful suggestion for others.

I ended up hard-wiring button pairs in parallel and attaching them to the same port :

Controller 1 (numbering according to the above diagram)
J1_8 and J1_5 => left shoulder
J1_9 and J1_4 => right shoulder
J1_7 and J_11 => select
J1_6 and J1_10 => start

Controller 2
J2_6 and J2_8 => select

Thanks to everybody for help!

You purposely want to build a cab that can not play most games? 😯
Anyways you'll have to check the keys n the mame menu, i think by default you access that by holding start. you can also open it from the retroarch menu, you can not see it from within emulationstation like you're trying to do on the picture.
Start the game first.

I just want to say grats and I am a little jealous of your bartop. I am a Campbell, too.

I just checked and there is no under voltage notification.

I did it this way:

copy the default RA-controller-config to another place of your choice (i.e.: "/home/AMIBERRY Inputs/") edit the button-mapping as you like in this copied file start AMIBERRY-GUI go to "paths", navigate the "inputs"-path to your new one. click on the button "rescan paths" There you go, the inputs are now as you like to have them global for all games ;)

Sorry, but you're using a 3rd party image bundled with the hardware, which we don't/can't support.
Note that selling RetroPie is against the project's license - https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/, so you've been scammed, since RetroPie is free/open source software.

Argggh,
found the reason for the problem written before:
I add the cron for user "root", this is incorrect! Must be for user pi !
root user is not allowed to start "emulatorstation".

@reboot /usr/bin/python /home/pi/mshutdown.py