Want to boost your Draw Something skills? Here's how to make a stylus for a capacitive touchscreen in four easy DIY steps.
Your very own DIY stylus is just a few minutes away.
Capacitive touchscreens are everywhere these days. They're in iPhones, iPads, iPods, Android/Windows smartphones, and all new tablets. Pretty much any mobile touchscreen device that is worth having, now has a capacitive touchscreen. Contributing author: Chris Martin.
The fact that the touchscreens are conductive means that your device will only recognise a touch from your finger (or other body part) rather than, for example, the material in your pocket, or sleeve. This in turn means that you cannot use any old pen or nib as a stylus for your touchscreen.
So, because we're good guys here at PC Advisor - and we want to gain any advantage we can on Draw Something - we've looked into how to make a stylus. As it turns out, you can make your own DIY stylus with a few simple items you have lying around the house - and so long as you have a pulse (and therefor a natural electrical current running through your body) you can make your own stylus in a few minutes…and become the king of Draw Something at the same time.
What you'll need is: a cheap plastic biro, any disused electrical wire, a sponge, and a pair of scissors/scalpel. If you have all of these, then you can make your own stylus in 5-10 minutes.
Alternately you can buy one readymade for about £20 - worth it to have that advantage over your Draw Something competition:
Griffin Stylus review
Just Mobile AluPen review
How to make a stylus:
DIY Stylus - Step one
Locate the disused electrical wire and cut off just over a biro length of it. Next you'll need to slice open the wire's outer rubber case and select one of the inner wires. Do the same again with one of the inner wires until you are left with just the copper wire.
DIY Stylus - Step two
Now you have your copper wire, you need to strip your cheap plastic biro down, until you are left with just its shell. Once this is done, you need to pierce a hole roughly half an inch from the biro's nib. Once you've done that - we recommend tightly twisting the copper fibres together - feed your wire through the newly made hole out to the nib of the biro.
DIY Stylus - Step three
Once you have the wire poking out the nib of the biro, you need to cut off a small piece of sponge and wrap it around the wire. After this, you need to force the sponge back down the nib of the pen, leaving a small amount poking out - ensure that once it's in, it's still in contact with the wire. Tip: you want to make your new sponge tip as tight and smooth as possible, this will give you more control when using the DIY stylus on your touchscreen.
DIY Stylus - Step four
Now you have your nib firmly in place, all you need to do it wrap the remanning wire around the outside of the pen. Remember, capacitive touchscreens require a current in order to work. So it's imperative you are touching some part of the wire when using your DIY stylus.
It's a simple as that. You now have your very own homemade stylus.
Comments
Moribund said: OK it works cheers but you have destroyed a pen a power cord and a sponge and spent half an hour of your time to produce a result that looks quite ugly If you used a piece of antenna instead of biro - the end result would have looked nicerIt would have been quicker to grab a stylus for 2 at Dollarama No need to destroy anything and you saved yourself some cash especially if your time is worth above minimum wage and your house isnt full of old sponges cords and broken pen peices -I dont consider shopping to b a universal solution for all problems and readily engage in DIY projects but only if they are worth the effort
andrew said: I made one where I put the sponge in the other end so it keeps its functionality as a pen A stylus pen went for 30 bucks at Best Buy lol
Mr Mistoffelees said: Lszl Br was the inventor of the ballpoint pen
Matt Egan said: Common name for a ball-point pen here in the UK Its actually a brand name that became ubiquitous think Tivo
Dave said: What the heck is a Biro
inveryes said: An alternative is to roll up some kitchen foil into a tight tube and insert it into the empty biro shell Stuff the piece of sponge in at the tip end so that it makes contact with the foil leaving a small tip of sponge protruding Lick the sponge tip like you would have done a pencil forty years ago and it worksI dont understand why as the foil insert isnt actually in contact with my hand when Im using it
inveryes said: Works fine if you touch the tip of your tongue with the sponge tip first
yeps said: you need a sponge that will conduct electricity aka make the electrons flow through the wire and create a capacitance at the end of the wirei dont think you mentioned that in the articleother comments are probably reporting this to not working because they need to wet the sponge before using itsource the internet
Matt Egan said: Thats a shame Its worked for us multiple times
Scholesyman said: Doesnt work Spent ages on this Even made 2 to be sure it wasnt my craftsmanship The sponge doesnt conduct
CARHUNTSMOM said: THIS DOES NOT WORK