How to Make Your Own Stylus Pen

There are a few stylus pens out there that are made for use on any of the apple touch devices.  Some work okay, others, not so good.

But the need for a decent stylus is crucial for those artists who use their devices to do artistic drawings or even technical detail sketches, like creating plan layouts for housing and for those women you have really long fingernails.

One stylus that seems to be popular is the Pogo Stylus.  Although it appears to do a satisfactory job, there are complaints that it is cheaply designed and the pocket clip breaks off early on.  Other stylus pens have received the thumbs down because you need to press down too hard for them to work, and if your primary reason for using the pen is to do drawings, it makes it really hard to keep pressure on the pen and draw at the same time.  But did you know that you can actually make your own stylus pen at home with the right materials?  All it takes is a cheap pen, even plastic will do, some wire (almost everyone has this) a small piece of conductive foam (used with many electronic parts) and a little tape, and you have your own stylus pen!

Here is something you probably didn’t know.  An Apple employee showed me this little tip… iPad’s, iPhones and iPod Touch screens are extremely hard to scratch!  I watched this employee take his keys out and scratch back and forth over the screen of his iPhone, which all of the employees use to take your orders and create your invoice from.  There was not a scratch on it.  He told me that all of the screens are made from a material that resists scratches.

Why am I telling you this?  Because the next thing I did was to take out a miniature  pen that I had, which has a smooth metal top (on the clip end) and tested it on the iPad.  It worked perfectly, as long as you tap the screen with the flat end (you could also write with it).  The pen side (with the ballpoint tucked inside) did not work, even though that end was made of metal also.  I also took a AAA battery which happened to be laying near me while I was experimenting with this, and tapped the screen with the flat end, it responded very well also, but when I tried it with the other end, I received no response whatsoever, just like with the pen.

It appears that there is some type of electrical signal that is transferred from your body, through the stylus or pen that is needed for recognition on the Apple devices.  I plan to do a little more experimenting with this, I will keep you posted on the results.  In the meantime, if you want to see how to create your own stylus pen, as mentioned above, watch this Video from Collins Lab, and Makezine.com.  For an all metal high quality stylus pen  without using ANY wire, check out the Second Video by Herman Wahsletn