The handles look relatively straight forward in those pics. I can't see any complexity or unusual difficulty at all as far as cnc machining goes.
The problem isn't the complexity, it's that you can't do it with a
4-axis CNC.
There are 3 areas that need to be milled out:
1. Switch cavity side (angled 15 degrees)
2. Tapered shaft mount side
3. Two shaft-screw holes
Note that 1.) the handles are angled, not perpendicular to the handle shaft and 2.) the shaft-screw holes are on the back of the handle.
Those shaft-screw holes correspond to the ones drilled into the handle shaft. (2nd part from right)
The CNC's 4th axis can rotate the work piece to mill 2 of the 3 areas vertically, but not the other one.
- In this case, Meatloaf got it wrong -- two out of three
is bad.
The only two ways I can think of to do this with one initial setup on a 4-axis CNC is to:
1. Make handles without the 15 degree ergonomic tilt.
or2. Move the shaft screws from the back of the handle to the bottom
and drill new holes in the handle shaft.
It looks like it would also be fairly easy to do a sand casting of for those who are into that.
Seems like a sand casting would probably lose some critical detail for the cotter pin and microswitch screw holes.
Is that the only plastic part that should be aluminum?
Vigorous gameplay can exert a lot of force on the controller parts when you slam into the stops so it's probably best to follow in the path of the original engineers.
The S.T.U.N. Runner yoke used
these plastic handles. (pg 32 of the manual
here)
I am assuming that nobody is suggesting replacing any of the internal parts? Plastic gears are not necessarily an issue for these things. They are used without problems in lots of directional guns.
The nylon/delrin(?) gears (
especially the 14 tooth one) are a
relatively weak point compared to the tank-like durability of the rest of the original controller, but usually aren't a problem for home-use.
If you eventually do need to replace them, it makes sense to upgrade to aluminum gears if Alan-1 starts selling them next year.
Scott