DIY Stylus for Most Touchscreen, Macbook, Trackpad, iPhone

DIY Stylus needs nothing to buy in real – a piece of conductive foam, a wire and an ordinary pen like thing together works as a stylus. The theoritical part might be bigger but practical part, to be very honest, is quite small. The practical thing you must realize that – the stylus we use are kind of extension of our finger – if you use some thicker cloth to grasp the stylus – they will not work for capacitive display. Most touchscreen are capacitive displays, so practically this trick will work with all except small fraction of displays and graphics tablet.

Basic Theoretical Background of DIY Stylus

Practically we dip our finder in electrostatic field around the screen, when we touch our Touchscreen. You can read about Capacitive Touch Screen here, in case you want to know the theoretical aspect. Quite obviously, some of the Graphics Tablets will co-share the same technology. All kind of Apple touch things – Magic Trackpad, Macbook’s Trackpad, iPhone display, iPad display, Magic Mouse – all uses the same technology.

Practically the tip of stylus should be “connected” to your body, that is the basic working mechanism.

Steps to Create a DIY Stylus

When a commercially purchased stylus is used, they also uses the same principles. Obvious difference is that the stylus is professionally crafted and will not injure your touchscreen with some sharp end. We will have to ensure it.

In these few steps, we can create a DIY Stylus :

1. Conductive Tip : conductive foam is able conduct electrical charge between hand and the screen. The distance between your hand and the tip should not be too great. The tip, must have around a quarter inch or greater in width, otherwise it will not work.
2. Backing cushion : Obviously a Rubber cushion behind the Tip made of conductive foam will offer practical support to the tip and will prevent the screen to get scratched.
3. The wire connected to that Tip’s conductive foam piercing the rubber padding
4. The wire ending at the conductive metal body of the stylus – rather the pen

If the pen and wire is of copper then this is great as copper is quite good conductive. So this is how your DIY Stylus can be created. The tip must look and feel as closer to an usual, average human index finger as possible. At software level, this thing is filtered to avoid the touch response by side of the fingers. Actually, if you spend some dollars, you can buy a “Cute Mini Mushroomhead Style Capacitive Touch Screen Stylus” at $2.50 as a ready-made head. Your Conductive Tip + Backing cushion is becoming non-DIY and pro in this case.