Introduction: How to Make the Best Homemade Stylus Ever Made!

What I'm about to share with you is a clear, transparent instruction of how to easily make the best homemade stylus, It’s the product made by experiences and a lot of trials and errors but anyway, It’s fun!

In April, 2010 I was studying in the university thinking about what to do to make money so I decided to import styluses from USA to Thailand. The sales were good but the product itself was crap. Some of you may remember styluses with the black foam tips back in days, they are still in the market, cheap but won’t last long. Due to my maker nature, I decided to make it better but how…I was thinking.

I found this https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10055 this is what I was looking for. Combined with my own DIY experience when I was in an elementary school I thought to wrap it on felt fabric. Felt is tough and spongy, mixing it with other things locally found such as wood and aluminum tube then I knew how to make the magic happen.

The conductive fabric is excellent, it’s tough and really smooth to glide on the screen leaving no bits of foam behind. The feedback from my customers are always positive and they are not only from within Thailand, I got customers from USA, Japan and Canada too. With more than 3000 sold and many who bought are returned customers, this is the assurance of quality.

Now in 2016, I hope it's not too late to share the idea with you guys. Tech products won’t last but knowledge will. So, Let’s get started!

Step 1: What You Will Need...

  1. A small piece of conductive fabric
  2. A small piece of thin felt fabric - I recommend the wool felt not the synthetic one.
  3. An aluminum tube - minimum width of 1/4 inch. I’m using 5/16 inch.
  4. A small, round file
  5. A stainless steel kitchen scrubber
  6. A tube cutter
  7. Scissors
  8. Tweezers or a toothpick
  9. A ruler
  10. A pen or a marker
  11. A handcrafted wooden stopper (optional)
  12. Super glue gel

Step 2: Cutting and Finishing the Tube

  1. Measure the length you would like to cut and mark it with a marker pen. By using a tube cutter it will leave no burr to worry about.
  2. Filing the inner part until you see the tube is wide open.
  3. Mix the dish soap with water and soak the tube in for a couple minutes and scrub it vigorously with the kitchen scrubber until it gets shiny and smooth.
  4. Wipe it clean and set aside until completely dry.

Step 3: Making the Tip

  1. Cut the felt and conductive fabric into 2*2 cm. If you're using a smaller tube than mine, the felt site should be 1*2 cm.
  2. By using the tweezers, roll the felt tightly and push in only halfway into the tube. Grab the conductive fabric, as it has 4 corners, gently push the first corner inside, grab the opposite corner and push in the opposite side, also do the same with another 2 corners.
  3. Right now you’re still seeing the untidy head. Working all around the side, slightly pushing all the wide open parts inside but be careful, don’t use too much pressure and don’t push it from the top or you’ll poke the hole on it.
  4. Keep sculpting until you see a round and sturdy head.

Step 4: Finishing

Now you have a fully functioning product but for me it’s not finish yet. With a small amount of super glue on the bottom end. I glued the wood stopper stamped with my logo, wait for a minute then it’s done…Tada!

Hope you’ll enjoy the tutorial and you can also visit my website.
www.iwhateverstylus.com

There are pre-made styluses available and also the kits for whoever wants to make a stylus but doesn't want to find the tools all over places.

or if you face any difficulty, you can email me here.

Thank you.