This Plane Flies Slow Because Its Wings Really Blow

August 2, 2025 by Tyler August 21 Comments

The key to Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) operations is the ability to fly slow– really slow. That’s how you get up fast without a long takeoff roll to build up speed. Usually, this involves layers of large flaps and/or leading edge slats, but [rctestflight] on YouTube decided he wanted to take a more active approach with a fully blown wing.

The airplane in question is R/C, of course, and good thing: these wings would be a safety nightmare for a manned aircraft. With a blown wing, air is blown out of a slot on the top end of the wing, producing a high-speed, high-pressure zone that keeps the wing flying when it would otherwise be completely stalled out. As long as everything works, that’s great! If an engine fails, well, suddenly you aren’t flying anymore — and you’re going too slow to glide. It ends badly.

[rctestflight] doesn’t have to worry about that, though, because this foamboard and pink styro R/C aircraft carries nothing that can’t survive a crash. (A couple of electric ducted fans (EDCs), an Ardupilot, a radio, and a battery are all pretty shock-resistant.) The EDCs sit midway down the chord of the wings, and blow air into a plenum carved into the foam. On each wing, the exhaust from the fans is driven rearward from a slot created by a piece of carbon fiber. This air serves not only as a lift-enhancement but also as the plane’s sole propulsion and a component of its control system.

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Thanks, Tamiya-san

August 2, 2025 by Elliot Williams 18 Comments

We’re saddened to report the passing of Shunsaku Tamiya, the man behind the Tamiya line of models. What was surprising about this, though, is how many of our readers and writers alike felt touched by the Tamiya model company. I mean, they made great models, and they’re definitely a quality outfit, but the outpouring of fond memories across a broad spectrum was striking.

For example, we originally ran the story as breaking news, but our art director Joe Kim spent a good part of his childhood putting together Tamiya kits, and felt like he absolutely had to do a portrait of Mr. Tamiya to pay his respects. I presume Joe is more on the painting-the-models end of the spectrum of Tamiya customers, given his artistic bent. Jenny’s writeup is absolutely touching, and her fond remembrances of the kits shines through her writing.

Myself, I’m on the making-small-robots end of the spectrum, and was equally well served. Back in the early ’90s, the “twin motor gearbox” was a moderately challenging and tremendously rewarding build for me, but it was also the only variable-ratio small motor gearbox that we had easy access to for making small bots to run around the living room.

Indeed, the Tamiya line included a whole series of educational models and components that were just perfect for the budding robot builder. I’m sure I have a set of their tank treads or a slip clutch in a box somewhere, even today.

It’s nice to think of how many people’s lives were touched by their kits, and to get even a small glimpse of that, you just need to read our comment section. We hope the company holds on to Mr. Tamiya’s love for quality kits that inspire future generations, whether they end up becoming artists, engineers, or simply hackers.

An ATTiny GPU Fan Controller That Sticks

August 2, 2025 by Heidi Ulrich 14 Comments

When your GPU fan goes rogue with an unholy screech, you either shell out for a new one or you go full hacker mode. Well, [ashafq] did the latter. The result is a delightfully nerdy fan controller powered by an ATTiny85 and governed by a DS18B20 temperature sensor. We all know a silent workstation is golden, and there’s no fun in throwing money at an off-the-shelf solution. [ashafq]’s custom build transforms a whiny Radeon RX 550 into a cool, quiet operator. Best of all: it’s built from bits likely already in your junk drawer.

To challenge himself a bit, [ashafq] rolled his own temperature-triggered PWM logic using 1-wire protocol on an ATtiny85, all without libraries or bloated firmware. The fan’s speed only ramps up when the GPU gets toasty, just like it should. It’s efficient and clever, and that makes it a fine hack. The entire system runs off a scavenged 12V fan. He could have used a 3D printer, but decided to stick onto the card with double-sided tape. McGyver would approve.

The results don’t lie: idle temps at 40 °C, load peaking at 60 °C. Quieter than stock, smarter than stock, and way cheaper too. The double-sided tape may not last, but that leaves room for improvement. In case you want to start on it yourself, read the full write-up and feel inspired to build your own. Hackaday.io is ready for the documentation of your take on it.

Modifying fans is a tradition around here. Does it always take a processor? Nope.

Custom Bedroom Lighting Controlled By Alexa

August 2, 2025 by Lewin Day 3 Comments

[Arkandas] had a problem. They liked reading in bed, but their bedroom lamps weren’t cutting it—either too bright and direct, or too dim and diffuse. The solution was custom lighting, and a new project began.

The concept was simple—build a custom controller for a set of addressable LED lighting strips that would be installed in the bedroom. Specifically, in the headboard of the bed, providing controllable light directly where it was needed. The strips themselves were installed in aluminum channel with plastic diffusers to give a nice smooth light. [Arkandas] then tasked an ESP32 to control the strips, using the FastLED library to work with WS2812B LEDs, and also the Adafruit NeoPixel library for using SK6812 LEDs and their extra white channel. The ESP32 was set up to provide a web interface for direct control over the local network. [Arkandas] also made good use of the FauxmoESP library to enable the device to be controlled via Amazon Alexa, which fit nicely into their existing smarthome setup. Files are on Github for the curious.

The final build works well, creating a soft light in the habitable area of the bed that can also be readily controlled via voice commands or via web. We’ve seen the ESP32 do other great feats in this arena before, too, albeit of the more colorful variety. Meanwhile, if you’re cooking up your own smart lighting solutions, don’t hesitate to tell the tipsline!

Universal Control For The Last Mac You’d Ever Expect

August 1, 2025 by Tyler August 8 Comments

Universal control is a neat feature on Macintosh computers, allowing you to slide your mouse seamlessly from device to device. Of course you need a relatively recent version of MacOS to make it work, right? Not necessarily– thanks to [Bart Jackobs] MacFriends, universal control has come to the Macintosh Classic.

The Arduino is perfect for this purpose, but choosing it ruined a perfectly good pun and we can never forgive that.

Well, not exactly universal control, but similar functionality at any rate. [Bart] can slide his mouse from one side of his retina display over onto the glorious 512 x 342, 1-bit display of his Macintosh Classic, just as if the 68k powered antique was a modern device. As you might expect, the Motorola 68000 in that old Mac is getting a teensy bit of help– though sadly for our love of puns, from an Arduino Nano and not any kind of Teensy.

The Arduino is emulating a mouse and keyboard on the Apple Desktop Bus using code based on the abduino by [akuker]. [Bart]’s custom software on the modern Mac captures the mouse and keyboard inputs to pipe to the Arduino via USB serial. Apple’s Universal control doesn’t require a wired connection between the two machines, of course, but then, it doesn’t work on the Classic. One could imagine redoing this project for Bluetooth communication to have that a same Clarkian feeling of technological magic Apple has always wanted to convey– but nothing was wireless in 1990 except for telegrams and a handful of telephones, so the project is appropriate as-is.

As much as we might resent that micro-controller for ruining a pun, if you want to hook into the ADB– perhaps to use old peripherals with an emulated Macintosh— an Arduino will do the job. So would a Teensy, though, and then we’d have our pun.

Our thanks to [Bart Jakobs] for the tip. Don’t forget to send in your own: the endless maw of the tipsline is always hungry.

AI Code Review The Right Way

August 1, 2025 by Al Williams 29 Comments

Do you use a spell checker? We’ll guess you do. Would you use a button that just said “correct all spelling errors in document?” Hopefully not. Your word processor probably doesn’t even offer that as an option. Why? Because a spellchecker will reject things not in its dictionary (like Hackaday, maybe). It may guess the wrong word as the correct word. Of course, it also may miss things like “too” vs. “two.” So why would you just blindly accept AI code review? You wouldn’t, and that’s [Bill Mill’s] point with his recent tool made to help him do better code reviews.

He points out that he ignores most of the suggestions the tool outputs, but that it has saved him from some errors. Like a spellcheck, sometimes you just hit ignore. But at least you don’t have to check every single word.

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You Can Make Your Own Floppy Drive Cleaning Disks

August 1, 2025 by Lewin Day 11 Comments

Once upon a time, you could buy floppy drive cleaning disks at just about any stationary or computer store. These days, they’re harder to find. If you want to build one yourself, though, you might do well to follow [Gammitin]’s fine example.

[Gammitin] has been down this road before, having built head cleaning disks before. This time, a US patent was the inspiration. It basically indicated that the spinning cleaning disc inside should be made of spunbonded polyester or spunbonded olefin (such as Dupont Tyvek)—so those materials were sought out.

The project began with [Gammitin] disassembling a standard floppy disk down to its bare components. The spindle was then separated from the magnetic platter, and refitted with a disc of Tyvek material using super glue. The disk housing was then glued back together with more super glue, and labelled as a “Floppy Cleaning Disk.” Using the disk is as simple as putting a few drops of isopropyl alcohol on the Tyvek material, and inserting it into a drive. [Gammitin] tested it with an old Olivetti machine, and found it cleaned up the heads nicely.

Sometimes, when a commercial product ceases to exist, you can just make your own at home. This is a great example of that ethos. If you’re cooking up your own tools and accessories to keep your old machines running, we’d love to hear all about it on the tipsline!