Whistling Birds Gauntlet Darts guide

Operations manual

Operations Manual for the Whistling Birds Prop

This page covers normal operational uses, configuration settings, what normal behavior looks and sounds like, and what to check when something seems off.

Mandalorian Whistling Birds Gauntlet Darts DIY kit components laid out

The owner’s manual for the Whistling Birds prop: daily use, settings, troubleshooting, and safety.

Quick Start

The Whistling Birds are designed to be simple to operate: use the magnet to arm and disarm, and natural wrist movements to control the darts. Practice the controls on a table before wearing the gauntlet.

  1. Power on. Press the power button. The dart tips fade in and out once and you’ll hear a boot sound — it’s ready.
  2. Arm. Pass the hand-plate magnet over the sensor. The darts extend row by row.
  3. Choose salvo size. Tilt up or down to cycle through your salvo sizes.
  4. Fire. Tilt left or right.
  5. Disarm. Pass the magnet again. The darts retract.
  6. Power off. Press the power button again.

Before First Use

Charge it first: plug in USB-C and leave it for a few hours before the first outing. Then run through this once.

Normal Operation

Power and Charging

The prop runs on its built-in rechargeable battery and charges over USB-C.

  • Battery: Best for wearing. Expect roughly 6–8 hours of continuous armed use at full brightness on the recommended 500 mAh battery. A typical convention day goes further, because time spent disarmed barely counts. Power Saving mode stretches runtime well past that (see Settings Menu), and the battery view always shows exactly where you stand.
  • USB-C: Best for long static displays: the prop runs from the cable and tops the battery up at the same time.
  • Charging: Plug in USB-C and it charges, powered on or off. A flat battery takes a few hours.
  • Battery lifespan: Like any rechargeable battery, capacity gradually decreases with age and use. If runtime becomes noticeably shorter over time, replacement batteries are available from us or from Adafruit (see Safety & Legal).

The LEDs use more battery than anything else, so the Brightness setting in the menu is the best way to stretch a day of wear: half brightness roughly halves what the LEDs draw. (The rest of the prop draws the same regardless, so total runtime stretches by less than that; dimming helps, it doesn’t double.) The prop also looks after the battery on its own:

  • Low-battery dimming. As the battery runs low the lights dim gently on their own, starting when the battery view would show four tips and settling at a dim floor by two, so a fading prop is a low battery, not a fault. In Power Saving mode, arming also flashes a warning (amber at four tips or fewer, red at two or fewer) and the sound eases down along with the lights. Full Power keeps the volume where you set it.
  • Auto-disarm. In Power Saving mode, going idle for 10 minutes while armed retracts the darts and disarms the prop to save battery. Full Power mode (the factory default) never does this. Just arm again if it happens. See Auto-Disarm.

Battery View While Charging

Plug the prop into USB power (a computer, wall charger, or power bank) and the LEDs switch to a battery display: the number of lit tips shows how much charge is left (all twelve lit is full), and the color says how much to worry about it: green with five or more tips lit (a healthy charge, not necessarily full), amber at three or four, red at one or two. Those are the same amber and red as the arming warnings, and they mean the same thing. Give it a moment; it can take a few seconds to appear. The Battery Level item in the settings menu shows the same readout any time, cable or not.

2 tips · red charge now 4 tips · amber charge soon 8 tips · green healthy all 12 · full sweeps up while charging

The same nozzle layout as a gauge: tips fill along the outer row first, the center tip is the twelfth.

In both places the tips also tell you which way the charge is going:

What the tips do What it means
Sweep upward Charging
Sweep downward Running down
Sit still, no sweep The level is shown, but the prop hasn’t detected which way it’s heading yet. Normal, especially near full

A disarmed prop shows the same display when plugged in: only the tips light; the darts stay retracted.

  • Unplug and the prop goes back to how it was.
  • Tilt down or pass the magnet to dismiss the display early. Dismissing doesn’t arm or disarm anything; the prop stays as it was, and the display stays hidden until you unplug and reconnect.
  • If you were armed mid-salvo when you plugged in, note that the dart count starts over: the next firing begins from a full loadout. (A fully spent prop stays spent; only the magnet resets it.)

Arm and Disarm

The magnet is how you arm and disarm.

Action How What happens
Arm Pass the magnet over the sensor Outer row extends, then middle, then center
Disarm Pass the magnet again while armed Center retracts, then middle, then outer
Open settings Hold the magnet ~2 seconds while disarmed Darts extend, then the menu opens

Salvo Selection and Firing

While armed, everything is controlled by tilting.

Gesture Behavior
Tilt left or right Fire
Tilt up Bigger salvo
Tilt down Smaller salvo

The prop cycles through its salvo sizes in order. The factory set is row mode (one whole row per shot), then one dart, four, and all twelve. (The list itself lives in the advanced settings file; see Tinkering.)

After a salvo fires

Each fired dart flashes white with a missile sound, and the fired tips glow with a soft afterburner fade (you pick the color in settings) before going dark. Once every dart in a row has been fired, that row retracts.

All darts depleted

Fired everything? The prop powers itself down. One pass of the magnet brings it back: it resets the darts and arms in the same motion, ready to fire. Don’t pass the magnet a second time; that disarms it again.

Firing modes

Firing Mode in the settings menu changes how firing works:

Mode While armed
Off Nothing fires. The prop stays armed and lit, and the magnet still arms and disarms, but every tilt and shake is ignored, salvo changes included, until you pick Tilt or Shake again.
Tilt Tilt left or right fires. Up and down change salvo size.
Shake Shake fires. Tilt left for a bigger salvo, right for a smaller one.

Your choice is saved and comes back after a power cycle.

Auto-Disarm

Auto-disarm follows your Power Mode setting, unless you’ve set your own window (below). In Full Power (the factory default), the prop never disarms itself while armed; lit darts stay lit until you disarm it or fire. In Power Saving, sitting armed for 10 minutes with no gestures retracts the darts and disarms the prop; lit darts doing nothing is the fastest way to drain a battery. Firing, changing salvo size, or a deliberate tilt resets that clock. Switch modes from the Settings Menu (Power Mode, item 8); see Settings Menu.

Want a different window, or none? That’s set in the advanced settings file (see Tinkering). Picking a Power Mode from the menu afterwards takes over from it again; Config Reset (item 10) puts the file back in charge.

Settings Menu

Change settings right on the prop, no computer needed. While disarmed, hold the magnet for about 2 seconds. The menu opens on Battery Level, so the first thing you see is your charge. It closes on its own after 15 seconds without a gesture.

Gesture Behavior
Tilt left Previous item
Tilt right Next item
Tilt up Select
Tilt down Exit the menu

Knowing where you are

The tips show your place in the menu. Battery Level shows the live battery display. Each of the other items lights a pattern in your afterburner color, and the pattern contains exactly as many tips as the item’s number, so counting the lit tips tells you where you are. The one exception is Config Reset, which lights every tip in red no matter what colors you’ve picked: the destructive item is meant to look like a warning.

Inside a submenu

Tilt up on an item to open it. Then:

Gesture Behavior
Tilt left / right Try the options
Tilt up Save your choice
Tilt down Cancel; nothing changes

Saved choices survive power-off, and they survive a firmware update: they live in the board’s own memory, not on the CIRCUITPY drive, so nothing that rewrites the drive disturbs them.

This menu is where the prop becomes yours: pick your dart tip and afterburner colors, choose an idle animation, set how firing works, and tune volume and brightness to taste. Battery Level keeps your charge one gesture away, Demo Mode puts on a hands-off show for display tables, and Config Reset gets you back to factory settings any time you want a clean slate.

1 · Battery Level (live battery view) 2 · Firing Mode 3 · Idle Animation 4 · Dart Tip Color 5 · Afterburner 6 · Volume 7 · Brightness 8 · Power Mode 9 · Demo Mode 10 · Config Reset

Each item’s pattern, on the real nozzle layout. Patterns light in your afterburner color (shown orange); Config Reset is always red.

Item # What it does
Battery Level 1 Shows the charge on the tips: the same readout as the charging display, sweeping up when charging, down when running down, and sitting still when the prop can’t yet tell. See Battery View While Charging.
Firing Mode 2 Off, Tilt, or Shake. The preview color tells you which: red for Off, blue for Tilt, green for Shake.
Idle Animation 3 Pick the light pattern the tips run while armed.
Dart Tip Color 4 Pick the color of the extended darts.
Afterburner Color 5 Pick the color of the glow after firing.
Volume 6 13 steps from mute to full. More lit tips = louder. A short sound and a quick flash of red indicates when you’ve reached either end of the scale.
Brightness 7 8 steps from 5% to 100%. The tips preview the exact brightness you’re choosing, with the same end-of-scale cue as Volume. The menu itself never goes fully dim, so a low setting can’t lock you out.
Power Mode 8 Full Power or Power Saving. Out of the box, Full Power leaves Brightness and Volume exactly as configured; Power Saving starts them at half (see Auto-Disarm for the timeout side of this same split). Selecting a mode here previews the strip at the brightness it gives you (white for Full Power, green for Power Saving) and sets Brightness, Volume, and the auto-disarm timeout to that mode’s values. Brightness and Volume are then ordinary settings again: change either from its own menu item and it sticks. Pick the same Power Mode again whenever you want back to its starting point.
Demo Mode 9 Starts the automatic showcase (below).
Config Reset 10 Forgets every setting you have saved from this menu and goes back to the factory values (or your advanced-settings file, if you have edited it), then restarts the prop. It asks you to be sure: selecting it starts a red pulse, and you must tilt up a second time within 5 seconds to go ahead. You will hear the confirmation, see every tip hold solid red for a second, and then the prop restarts on its own — that restart is the reset working, not a fault. Tilt down (or wait) to cancel; nothing changes. Its menu color is red, on every tip, always, whatever colors you’ve picked.

Demo Mode

Made for conventions, display tables, and photos: the prop runs itself. Each round it picks a random color, an idle animation, and the next salvo size, then arms already wearing them, runs the animation for a few seconds, and fires until empty. It walks through your salvo sizes in order, then starts over. It fires only on its own schedule; shaking or bumping the prop does nothing.

  • Stop it any time with the magnet or a downward tilt. The prop disarms and goes dark.
  • Nothing the demo does is saved; your own color and salvo size are back the next time you arm.
  • It runs until you stop it. (A time limit can be set in the advanced settings file; see Tinkering.)

What Normal Behavior Looks Like

All of this is the prop working as designed.

  • Lights fade and a tone plays at power-on. That’s the ready signal.
  • Clicks and whirs during arm, disarm, and fire. The motor only runs while rows are moving, and the rows click as they go. Normal.
  • A beat between gesture and response. The prop ignores tiny wobbles so it can’t fire by accident. Deliberate motions work best.
  • A short pause before the battery display clears. An armed prop notices a cable almost immediately. A disarmed prop parked on a charger re-checks every few seconds, so give it a moment after unplugging.
  • A disarmed prop lights up when plugged in. That’s the battery display; the darts stay retracted. It clears when you unplug.
  • A short sound and red flash in the settings menu. You reached the end of the Volume or Brightness scale.
  • Battery reads a little high on USB. The reading is most accurate when the prop is running on its battery; on the cable it can sit a tip higher than it will once unplugged.
  • Amber or red flashes when arming. The low-battery warning in Power Saving mode, the same colours the battery view turns. Charge soon. (The gentle dimming happens in both modes; only the flash is Power Saving’s.)
  • Darts retracted on their own. In Power Saving mode, being armed and idle for 10 minutes disarms the prop to save battery. Arm again. (Full Power mode never does this.) See Auto-Disarm.
  • Settings after a firmware update. Your menu settings (colors, volume, brightness, and the rest) carry across an update on their own; they live in the board’s memory rather than on the drive. The advanced settings file is the exception: an update replaces it, so any edits there don’t carry over; see Tinkering.
  • The menu closed on its own. It times out after 15 seconds without a gesture. Hold the magnet to reopen it.
  • Runtime is shorter in the cold. Batteries deliver less below room temperature, so an outdoor winter shoot costs a noticeable slice of the day. It comes back as the pack warms up.

Troubleshooting

Find the symptom that matches. If nothing here fixes it, see the Support guide, or reach us directly (Contact & Links).

Symptom Likely cause What to check
No response at all No power reaching the board Press the power button: one clean press, not a hold. Still nothing? Plug in USB-C: the prop turns on as soon as USB power arrives, so if it comes to life the battery was simply flat; leave it plugged in to charge. No response even on USB-C means something is actually wrong; contact us. A working prop always plays the boot sound and tip fade at power-on.
Powers on but won’t arm Magnet position, or the arming sensor (a reed switch) unplugged or faulty In order:
  1. Magnet position. Pass the magnet slowly across the sensor area, closer than usual, and try a little left, right, up, and down. The sensor is small and the sweet spot is specific.
  2. Sensor unplugged. Check the reed switch’s plug is fully seated.
  3. Sensor faulty. Unplug the reed switch and touch the two prongs in the plug with something metal. If the unit arms, the reed switch itself is the problem, often fixable by gently spreading its leads apart so they sit 90° from the plastic housing. If that doesn’t bring it back, contact us.
If it arms fine on USB but not on battery, press RESET once and try again, and if that ever repeats, tell us; we want to hear about it.
Arms but darts don’t move Something binding Power the prop off and look for anything jamming the dart rows or nozzle: a fold of fabric, a fiber, a bit of debris. Don’t force the rows by hand. If they still won’t move, contact us.
Arms normally but won’t fire Firing Mode is Off, or the wrist isn’t returning to level Check Firing Mode in the settings menu first: Off ignores every firing gesture while armed, and it stays Off until you change it. If it’s set to Tilt or Shake, come back to level between gestures; each tilt counts once.
Fires or arms on its own Magnet resting too close Move the magnet so only a deliberate wrist motion triggers it.
Tilts feel inconsistent Motion too subtle Use a bigger, deliberate tilt. Small wobbles are ignored on purpose.
Servo buzzes after moving Something binding Look for rubbing in the gears, fiber optics, wires, or nozzle. If it persists, the advanced settings file describes an alternate set of servo positions to try (see Tinkering).
Worked on the table, misbehaves in the gauntlet Something is pressing on the module or the magnet sits too close Take the module out and test it on a table. If it’s fine there, look at what the gauntlet is pressing against and where the magnet rests.
Powered down after firing everything All darts spent Expected. One magnet pass resets and re-arms in the same step. See All darts depleted.
Retracted on its own without firing Auto-disarm Ten idle minutes while armed disarms the prop in Power Saving mode, to save battery. Arm again, or switch to Full Power mode to turn this off; that also resets Brightness and Volume to Full Power’s values. See Auto-Disarm.
Dimmer than the brightness you set Battery nearly empty Once the battery view would show four tips or fewer, brightness eases down on its own: no sudden step, a gradual slide to a dim floor by two tips. Charge it and full brightness comes back on its own.
Plugged in, but the battery display isn’t sweeping Nothing wrong; the sweep only shows a trend the prop has detected A still display is normal, especially near full charge; a nearly full battery charges too slowly to tell. The number of lit tips is still the level. See Battery View While Charging.
A tilt won’t fire twice Wrist still tilted Come back to level between tilts; each gesture needs a fresh start. See Salvo Selection and Firing.
No sound, lights fine Volume at the bottom of its scale The bottom Volume step is mute, and it’s saved: a muted prop stays muted through power-offs until you raise it again. Open the settings menu, go to Volume (item 6), and tilt it up. If the volume is up and it’s still silent, contact us.
A dart tip, fiber, or printed part broke Wear and tear — it happens to a worn prop Contact us with a photo and we’ll sort out the replacement part and the repair steps for your piece. Don’t glue anything near the dart rows or nozzle: stray adhesive in the moving parts turns a broken tip into a bound gearbox.
Lights stuck in a weird state: some on, some off, only afterburner colors, or nothing responds The board latched into a bad state In order: power the prop off with its button, wait ten seconds, and power it on. Still stuck? Press the RESET button on the underside once. As a last resort, unplug USB-C and disconnect the internal battery for a few seconds, then reconnect; a full power disconnect clears states nothing else can. Reaching the battery plug means taking the board out of its enclosure, so take it slow, and contact us first if you’re unsure; we’re happy to walk you through it.
Dead at power-on, and the CIRCUITPY drive is empty The board wiped its own storage (very rare) These boards can occasionally lose their files. Copy the software from your firmware download back onto the CIRCUITPY drive and it will run normally again. Your download link is in your order.

The Two Buttons on the Bottom

The two small buttons on the underside are part of the circuit board itself (an Adafruit RP2040 Prop-Maker Feather): RESET and BOOT. You’ll never need them while wearing the prop, but they’re good to know.

Button What it does When to use it
RESET Restarts the prop, same as powering off and on with the power button. If the prop ever stops responding, after editing the advanced settings file, or if the CIRCUITPY drive shows up read-only on your computer (a rare USB hiccup; one press clears it).
BOOT Hold BOOT, tap RESET, release: the board starts in recovery mode and shows up on your computer as a drive called RPI-RP2. Only during a firmware recovery, and only when the instructions tell you to. Pressing it during normal use does nothing.

Convention and Event Use

Most events run a weapons check at the door. These are the facts a checker usually asks for, in the order they usually ask.

Question Answer
Does anything leave the gauntlet? No. The darts extend and retract on a servo-driven gearbox and stay attached to it throughout.
Are there springs? None anywhere in the module. Nothing stores mechanical energy.
How does it “fire”? The effect is light, sound, and the servo retracting the row. There is no propulsion of any kind.
What are the tips made of? Resin or printed plastic, bonded to the LED housings. Some carry a metallic finish, cosmetic only, no metal.
Can a row come loose? Not while it is installed. Separating a row requires removing the gauntlet, releasing the module from its mount, and disassembling it on a bench.
Can firing be disabled? Yes. Set Firing Mode to Off in the settings menu and it will not fire even while armed and lit (every firing and salvo gesture is ignored, only the magnet works), so you can show a checker rather than explain. Disarmed, the darts stay fully retracted.
Power source? A small built-in rechargeable battery, charged over USB-C.

Care & Storage

  • Power off, with the darts retracted, before packing it away. Left switched on but disarmed, the prop naps: after half an hour untouched it drops into a deep sleep that stretches standby to days, and the next magnet touch wakes it straight into arming after a brief pause. The power switch is still the right way to store it long term.
  • Keep it out of hot cars and direct sun; heat is hard on the battery and on printed parts.
  • Wet day? Wipe it dry after wear; don’t pack it away damp.
  • Before an event, look over the dart tips and fiber optics and run the pre-flight checklist (see Before First Use).
  • Charge it before any long break, and top it up every couple of months in storage; a flat battery left for weeks doesn’t recover.

Safety & Legal

  • For cosplay, display, and photography only. It is not a toy and not a weapon (nothing launches and nothing stores mechanical energy), and it is not for unsupervised children: the darts, small parts, magnet, and battery are not child-safe.
  • Keep fingers, gloves, capes, and loose fabric clear of the dart rows and nozzle while it’s powered, and never fire while someone is touching the mechanism.
  • Don’t leave it powered and unattended.
  • Disconnect power if it gets unusually hot or acts strangely, and stop using any unit that is damaged.
  • Keep it away from moisture, high heat, and hard knocks to the electronics.
  • Don’t push or pull the dart rows by hand while it’s powered; that can strip the gears.
  • The arming magnet is a strong little magnet. Keep it away from pacemakers and other implanted medical devices, and don’t store it against credit cards or mechanical watches.
  • Don’t open the module or touch the wiring inside beyond the steps this guide walks you through (checking the arming sensor’s plug, or disconnecting the battery as a last resort). For anything else, contact us.
  • Charge it where you can see it, and charge it before putting the prop away for a while; a flat battery left for weeks doesn’t recover.
  • If the battery ever swells or the prop gets unusually hot while charging, stop immediately: don’t charge it again and don’t puncture it. Take the battery to a battery-recycling drop-off (not the household trash). Replacements are available from us, or directly from Adafruit (product 1578).

And the legal side, in plain terms:

  • Operate at your own risk. The prop contains electronics, moving parts, and a lithium battery, which carry inherent risks (heat, pinch points, battery failure). Use the prop as this guide describes.
  • As-is, limited liability. The prop and its files are provided as-is, without warranty of safety, performance, or fitness for any purpose, and Foxhead Workshop’s liability is limited to the purchase price. The full terms are in the License Agreement (LICENSE.md) included with your files; if anything here differs from it, the License Agreement governs.
  • Personal-use license. Your files and prints are licensed for personal, non-commercial use: build for yourself, don’t sell prints, don’t share the files. Full terms in LICENSE.md.
  • Fan-made, unaffiliated. The Whistling Birds Gauntlet Darts Module is a fan-created tribute inspired by The Mandalorian. Foxhead Workshop is not affiliated with or endorsed by Disney or Lucasfilm Ltd.; Star Wars and The Mandalorian trademarks and copyrights belong to their owners.
  • Event rules and local law are yours to check; see Convention and Event Use.

Tinkering

Everything a normal day needs is in the settings menu. A handful of deeper choices (the list of salvo sizes, the auto-disarm window, the deep-sleep delay, a demo-mode time limit, alternate servo positions) live in one advanced settings file on the prop itself. Plug the prop into a computer with the USB-C cable; it appears as a small drive named CIRCUITPY, and the file is config.py. Open it in any text editor (Notepad is fine): every setting sits next to a plain-English comment explaining it. Change a value, save, press RESET, and it loads. The other files on the drive are the prop’s software; leave them be; config.py is the only one meant for editing. Two things to know: anything you’ve changed from the settings menu wins over the file (Config Reset hands control back to the file), and a firmware update replaces the file, so keep a copy and put your values back afterwards.

Firmware Updates

The firmware download from your order is how updates arrive: when we release one, the same download gets you the new version. The step-by-step lives in Software/README.md inside the download; the short version: back up config.py, clear everything off the CIRCUITPY drive, copy the new files on, then carry your config.py values into the new file by hand. (The clear matters; files left over from the old version cause strange startup errors.) Everything you’ve set from the settings menu (colors, volume, brightness, and the rest) survives on its own.

Not sure which version you’re running? Updating to the latest is always safe, never loses your menu settings, and settles the question.

Contact & Links

Questions, a replacement part, or a build you want to show off? Reach us here, and follow along: