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freeplay zero - button relocation ?
hi all,
ive seen loads of pics of final builds with extra shoulder buttons etc
but ive not seen any diagrams or pics that show how this is possible, or even if it is with the freeplay zero

the housing on my current build has broke ( the plastic tabs that keep the battery cover locked in place have broke off the shell )
so im looking to re-shell and because i dont like the current XY buttons,
the caps are too tall & the buttons just dont feel right (too clicky)
im thinking maybe it would be possible to relocate them to the rear of the shell and use different tact buttons, sacrificing the current X,Y ones in the process (saving me the pain of trying to center the holes on the front shell in the process)

if anyone can help it would be appreciated
If you just want to relocate the X/Y buttons, it should be very doable.

As an aside, you mentioned the height of the current X/Y buttons.  Lately, I've seen lots of builders cutting them slightly shorter before applying the caps.

To relocate the buttons, you can just wire your desired new buttons in parallel with the current buttons.  Then, if you like, you could just cut the button shafts off, so you don't need the current ones.  You could also cut off the "sub-PCB" that the buttons are mounted on if you want to take it a bit further.

If you are wanting to add L2/R2 buttons, that's a different thing.  It's also doable, but there is more to it, since you need to modify the button driver config to accept the added inputs.  It's a lot like what we do with the Freeplay CM3 add-on board (https://www.freeplaytech.com/product/fre...-on-board/).  

You would want to edit the button drive conf file, something like this.

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/mk_arcade_joystick.conf

Then you can define the extra GPIO locations to use for the added (L2, R2, etc) buttons.
There's a little discussion of this at the bottom of https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GkmF...1wgEY/edit#

The pinout for the Freeplay Zero's interface to the Pi Zero can be found here: https://www.freeplaytech.com/wp-content/...cument.pdf
Notice that GPIO 2, 3, and 25 are available.

Let us know how it goes or if you have other questions.

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