A Functional Razor Crest Control Lever

While seeing a show or movie is good enough for most people, true fans may want a token of what they’ve seen to make it more real. Often this means making a replica prop for display. ZapWizard, however, went a few steps further, creating a beautiful Razor Crest control lever from The Mandalorian that can also act as a functional game controller.

As demonstrated in the video below, it’s a mechanically elegant build with a geared system that allows for position sensing, as well as a speed limiter so the handle doesn’t simply flop around. Movement freedom can be adjusted via an axis screw, and an adjustable detent system that holds the lever loosely in certain positions.

Electronics-wise, the device is fairly simple, implementing an Adafruit Trinket M0 dev board to emulate a game controller and a tiny potentiometer to read the position of the stick. ZapWizard didn’t initially consider that the gear system would reverse the device’s input direction, but this was easily rectified in software. As it’s a single-axis device, only one potentiometer is needed here, and no other buttons or inputs are implemented.

It looks like a lot of fun in at the end of the video, being used to play Star Wars Squadrons in VR. One might note that you can't see device’s beautiful weathered finish with a headset on, though the careful attention that was paid to the tactile mechanical operation has to be a joy to use.