VR Accessories

A number of my friends and I have VR headsets and like to play a rhythm game called BeatSaber. Beat Saber is a game where you use virtual lightsabers that track your real life hand position to slash incoming blocks to the music. It’s a lot of fun but also a good workout!

Since the gameplay is based on Star Wars lightsaber combat, a few tracks in the game are designed to be played with Darth-Maul inspired staff with two lightsabers on either end. The problem is you need a physical contraption to hold the VR handles to a staff. The video to the right shows both normal and ‘Maul’ gameplay.

For Christmas last year I wanted to make a darth maul grip for my friend who plays a lot of BeatSaber!

VR Youtuber ‘Proper D’ shows off beatsaber in normal mode (right) and ‘darth maul’ mode (left). He’s overlayed live video of himself onto the game.

The company that makes the VR system released .STEP CAD of their products for this specific reason, so I was able to download it and CAD an quick accessory to fit it!

I was able to print the complex surfaces using an obnoxious amount of support material, mount it to some scrap aluminum pipe, and finish off the project with some rubber grip tape and velcro straps.

It didn’t look nice enough to take proper photos unfortunately :/

I also laser cut some simple puzzles for him in case the VR attachments got damaged in transit.

Edit 5/20/2020: Weighted BeatSaber controllers

I was playing a lot of beatsaber and wanted to get a better arm workout from it, so I decided to make some weighted controller attachments. I couldn’t find anything like it on the market at the time and it seemed like it would be an easy project.

The first thing to do was decide the location of weights: I tried strapping steel stock to various points on the controller, and it quickly appeared that they needed to be mounted close to the center-axis of the controller, else swinging the lightsabers felt very unnatural. Also I couldn’t use anything more than a pound for even the length of a single song, so I decided to target 0-2 lbs of adjustable weight.

Secondly to source the weights: existing exercise plates aren’t cost effective or very available at these weights, so I settled on large-diameter steel washers. I downloaded a .csv of specs of the 550 mild steel washers that were large enough in diameter and went to work pairing them down. I made the spreadsheet on the right to calculate $/lb of different washers and find a pair of washers that shared an inner diameter and created a cost effective weight set with small enough increments.

unweighted assembly. 3D print in black and controller in light grey.

assembly with 2 lb of additional weight.

I paired these washers with an aluminum bolt to reduce weight of the unweighted assembly and a knurled nut so the weights could be adjusted quickly by hand. A 3D-printed frame with flextures to easily snap onto the controller

I 3D printed these and they worked well! I used these for 2 months to great effect. Unfortunately I ended up losing access to the VR setup when I split with my roommate so I don’t have any pictures :(