Dimensions
The Bazooka shifter body measures at 300mm length and takes up 80mm width when bottom mounted. Side-mounting it will add 30mm on top of that. The H1 is in the middle height range for shifters - bottom to gear knob top measures 300mm as well. The gear stick is pretty long and allows you to tuck the shifter body somewhere out of sight where it will not interfere with anything and still have the gear knob in correct position.
Weight we measured 3244gr without cable (with knob). This heavy enough and requires extra care while mounting so you do not scratch the nice machined finish. This bumps shipping weight to about 4KG, which presents itself in a quite large box at your doorstep. Shifter is being sent for the time being assembled, but BDH are working on new packaging with which shifter stick will be shipped detached from body. Looks pretty neat on pictures - step in the right direction.
Shifter looks bulky but in reality it is not - actually is quite compact device because of its unique design. Below you can see it compared to another popular shifter:
Retaining brackets
Shifter is mounted to base through two brackets held with 4 screws each. The top brackets have milled indentation which serves to alighn the shifter in bottom or side mounted position. To switch between them you will have to change the position of a small plastic washer screwed to the shifter body:
Shifter details
The BDH H1 shifter is built around microswitches connected to a standard USB gamepad module. We will not get into much details but this type of controller is very common and well know and has its own limitations. The biggest one of them being its widespread use - a lot of people utilize those in button boxes and other hardware which then leads to compatibility issues when you connect second one. In future we are sure this will be addressed but for the time being keep it in mind especially if you already use such gamepad controller.
The controller itself is mounted in a cleverly designed enclosure between shifter body and mounting base. Be careful when you assemble them back together not to cut the switch cables!
The standard gear knobs are nylon, but as mentioned before on pre-production unites we saw some Aluminium ones. Design resembles classic rally knob - pretty good item. Feels very comfortable, also quite nice to touch - nylon material is actually very pleasant. It relies on standard metric gear knob interface (maybe the most popular one) - M10x15. This allows you to use wide array of aftermarket knobs (as we did later on in the review).
The tensioning mechanism sits right above the USB controller. It is adjusted with Hex screw held in place by thumb stopper. This is tool-free adjustable and is in relatively comfortable place (even in our awkward mounting positions we can adjust it without issues):
Shifter internals
Switch gates: the shifter gates mechanism is built around 8 microswitches held in place with a 3D printed shroud. It has very cleverly designed gates - plastic covers mounted on M5 screws in the correct places. The plastic covers provide very good feeling when you switch between gates - even if you hit them the transition is smooth and unimpaired. They are also perfect length and you have discrete gates with pronounced separation.
Should you ever need to service this (for us only once the plastic nuts came unscrewed, more on that later) the cover is very easy to remove even when shifter is mounted - it is held only by a single stopper screw. If you suddenly start experiencing gears requiring more precise shifting or force to overcome gate - this is clear indication that some of those caps got unscrewed :
On the other side of the shifter we have a simple cover held in place with two screws. Removing it gives access to the stick-shaft pivot assembly - again very easy to access even with shifter mounted on rig. If you start feeling longitudal freeplay in the shift level - tighten the screw underneath:
We have not dismantled any further the shifter as it voids it's warranty, also out of concern if we will ever be able to assemble it back. Shifter has some holes on the side from which you can see the internals, but it is too complicated to take pictures on them.