Samwise Makers' News
Monday, June 29, 2026
Hack Improves Cheap Speed Controllers
Tony Goacher needed better throttle control for his TrakTrike, a wild bicycle-half-track hybrid. Commercial BLDC speed controllers handle the raw power, but their throttle response was jerky and inconsistent, especially at low speeds. His fix: an Arduino Nano wired in between the throttle and the existing Chinese controllers. The Nano intercepts the throttle signal and applies custom acceleration and deceleration curves, smoothing out the torque delivery and eliminating dead spots. It’s a minimal-parts fix that doesn’t require replacing the controllers themselves. Source code is on GitHub at TonyGoacher/TrakTrike-Controller for anyone running similar off-the-shelf ESCs who wants a smarter throttle.
World's Biggest RC A380 Is a Big Deal
When scale model builders say go big or go home, Ramy RC apparently took that literally. His team built a 1/8-scale Airbus A380 that stretches 29 feet (8.83 m) long with a 32-foot (9.75 m) wingspan and weighs in at 800 pounds (362 kg). The fuselage is CNC-cut EPS foam encased in fiberglass on the outside and carbon fiber on the inside. The wings combine carbon fiber, aluminum, foam, and wood for strength without adding mass. Window frames are 3D-printed with real acrylic windows inserted. The build quality is extraordinary, and the final flight is somehow graceful.
Accurate Split-Flap Display Can Be 3D Printed
Split-flap displays have a retro charm that’s hard to replicate with LEDs, but building one accurately is notoriously tricky. Jason solved the positioning problem by pairing a 28BYJ stepper motor with a magnetic encoder for closed-loop control, mounted inside a planetary gear set that puts the motor in the center of the flap drum for compact assembly. The two-tone flap faces can be printed on a single-color printer via a filament swap mid-print with no dual-extruder required. A Raspberry Pi Pico drives the five-character display. STL files and firmware are available for anyone who wants airport departure board energy in their living room.
Custom Hybrid Drivetrain Powers RC Boat
[rctestflight] turned a hybrid concept into a functional RC boat drivetrain using a simple but clever pairing. A knockoff Honda engine runs purely as a generator with no mechanical connection to the prop, while an electric skateboard motor handles propulsion and also regenerates under certain conditions. The combination outputs roughly 800 watts. At full throttle the boat reaches 7 knots (about 13 km/h), which is solid for the hull size. The real experiment was efficiency: [rctestflight] mapped torque and RPM data across multiple operating points to find the sweet spot where the generator-plus-motor combination actually makes energetic sense.
Prusa Updates Open Community Licence, Adds Plugin System
Prusa Research has released version 1.1 of its Open Community Licence, the open-source framework covering files shared on Printables. The headline addition is a plugin system that lets platform operators or communities attach additional clauses to the core licence without rewriting or forking it, keeping the base OCL clean while allowing context-specific expansion. The update also tightens copyleft provisions, closing ambiguities from v1.0. As an alternative, Prusa is now offering CERN OHL-S v2 as an option for hardware designs on Printables. It’s a meaningful step toward clearer rights for open hardware designers who want to share models and protect community improvements.
VIDYUT: Compact MPPT Solar Controller for Off-Grid IoT
Most MPPT solar controllers are designed for rooftop installations, making them far too large for compact IoT edge nodes and remote sensors. FluxionX Powertech’s VIDYUT targets that gap. Built around a Texas Instruments BQ24650 charge IC, it uses a synchronous buck topology to deliver industrial-grade efficiency with up to 210W of continuous load capability. It supports Li-Ion, LiFePO4, and sealed lead-acid batteries, with chemistry selection handled entirely through resistor networks rather than firmware. An STM32 Cortex-M0+ handles monitoring and data logging. Schematic files, PCB images, and STL files for the 3D-printed enclosure are all included in the Hackster project.
Sources: Hackster.io Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
HamsterOS Crams a Full Graphical Desktop Onto a 1.44 MB Floppy
New operating systems for 386 and 486-era hardware don’t come along often, but John Swiderski is building one. HamsterOS is a 32-bit multitasking graphical OS that fits entirely on a single 1.44 MB floppy disk, complete with a native application suite and DOS compatibility. Practical features include a CMOS crash counter that automatically drops the system into VGA safe mode after three consecutive failed boots, a smart touch for aging hardware. Swiderski also released HamsterWeazle, a free GUI for Greaseweazle, the USB device that interfaces with old floppy drives. HamsterOS is targeting a November 2026 release and is looking for retrocomputing enthusiasts to test early builds.
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. Lumos Ultra — ~$4.6M raised, Kickstarter
2. xTool WonderPress — ~$4.2M raised, Kickstarter
3. CardputerZero — ~$1.4M raised, Kickstarter
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. tonygoacher/TrakTrike-Controller — New this week★
2. Klipper3d/klipper — 10.2k★ 3D printer firmware
3. VoronDesign/Voron-2 — 9.8k★ Open-source CoreXY printer
Upcoming Events
Maker Faire Edmonton — Jul 17–19, Edmonton, Canada
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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