iPad Stylus - also for Tablets, iPod, iPhone, Touchpad - Stylish and Simple

After trying a stylus or two, as well as trying the many other crazy solutions floating around the internet (sausages are not a solution), I finally have found a simple and good looking solution. Here is what you will need to make your own...

Material & Tools
   + Metal pen
   + Piece of conductive foam - high density 2"x1/4"  1/8" to 1/4" thick
         this is the foam material that computer chips are frequently shipped with
   + A Q-Tip or other cotton swab
   + Scissors

The most signifiant challenge was finding an existing pen, made with metal and having an opening large enough to support a good sized tip end. Amazingly I found an ideal solution with the Zebra Telescopic Bright pens. They have everything we need as well as a cool telescoping feature.

Here are my Amazon links:

  Zebra Tele-Scopic Ball Point Pen
  Zebra Telescopic Brights 2 pack

I found one for about $3, but last I looked prices were $4 to $5 per pen.

The second challenge is finding some conductive foam. I had a bunch lying around, if you don't, find someone who works with electronics, they probably have a bunch. This is the foam that computer chips are often shipped with. Although you can buy sheets of High Density Conductive PU Foam, the typical 12"x12" will cost you about $8 and will give you way more than you need, enough to make more than a couple hundred stylus tips.

With your Zebra pen, conductive foam, your scissors and a cotton swab, you are ready to make your stylus.

(WARNING: Be careful that you have some soft conductive foam, test to make sure you have something that will not scratch the surface of you screen. You can also test how well it conducts by just holding the foam and tapping the screen. I've heard suggestions of aluminum foil and steel wool, I would not get them anywhere near my screens. And, if you are curious how the touch screen works, here is a good explanation: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/iphone2.htm )

Step 1 Prepare the Pen

+ Unscrew the tip of the Zebra Pen, remove the tip insert, spring and ink.


The good news, you are done. If you don't have the Zebra pen you might need to find some way of enlarging the tip. Other ink pens usually have an opening just large enough to accommodate the ink tip. The Zebra Telescoping is nice because it has the additional sliding tip insert (a very cool design btw). We remove this tip, but it is the reason we have a pre-made tip the right size.

Comments

[peterbryenton]

I do like your cotton swab support, thanks.

[gcoma]

Is there anything other than conductive foam that we could substitute? Im kinda without a job and spending money on projects is a nono for me right now. TnT

[emcelhannon]

I'm stumped with the foam. I don't recognize it. The only comp chips I've gotten came with some black porous foam. It doesn't look as dense as you have. Where else should I look?

[hanelyp]

The black porous foam is conductive, and should be usable for this project.

[memyselfand1]

I like it muchly. Thanks for posting!

[NatNoBrains]

I'm sooooo building this!

[plugable]

Simple and useful, neat project!

[Dr. Pepper]

Cool!