mrjester wrote:What about a design for right-hand use?
The same handle design mirrored will work. I don't think I will be molding a right handed version, the costs is too high, but if a lefty wants to buy one i will probably offer a 3d printed mirrored handle.
In other news I printed the handle posted above. As many of you guessed it is too small, especially for me as I have big hands. Something else I learned is that a large angle from horizontal is bad. It looked good on paper but did not feel good. So I ended up scrapping this design, the lesson learned here is to get the basic shape you want before doing all the work of designing for molding. Here is a comparison shot of the original and the first revision.
http://i.imgur.com/Bb2G5Gr.jpg
So there are a couple tough considerations here, first is that a bigger handle feels better in your hand, but is worse in a lot of other aspects. First of all a big handle looks bad. Unfortunately its not like a joystick where the size of the entire device is dictated by the handle. The size is mostly dictated by the arms, and the handle needs to have a similar size or it will look weird. Second, a big handle is bad for fine control. It seems like the point on my hand where I have the best control is right beneath my third knuckle on my index finger, just at the top of my palm. So for my handle I want that spot as close to the center of the plate where all the arms meet up. If the handle is too tall, you put lots of moment on the handle and that makes the whole thing harder to control, same with if the handle is too far off to one side. So in general I want the handle to be as small as possible while still being comfortable, and try to get the point on my hand where I feel like i have most control right in the center of the device.
What I ended up doing was a curved handle. This is good because it fills up more of your palm, but visually still appears small and fits in with the rest of the device. The current version is a little too tall, and needs the post moved a bit forward, but so far I like the feel.
http://i.imgur.com/gE2EXel.jpg
Hand position while holding the handle.
http://i.imgur.com/oUOvqug.jpg
