ok, so I’m dead set on creating a stylus for my iphone. Using your finger is “ok”, but sometimes it’s not accurate enough.
AFAIK, the phone uses a touch system that passes a light electrical field across the screen, and when pressed, it discharges the “field” and thus the phone knows where you are pointing.
I was just screwing around with it and obviously a plastic pen cap didn’t work. I then tried an eraser as it would be the perfect consistency and size for such a device but no big surprise, it doesn’t work either.
I was going through some shit around my desk and decided to try wrapping the eraser end of a pencil in aluminum foil and sure as shit… it works, but it looks ugly, it doesn’t always seem to register on the phone and I’m afraid a sharp edge will scratch the screen. I then tried forming a stylus from rolled foil and again… seems to work ok (on the large end, the smaller end didn’t work at all) most of the time, but afraid the surface will scratch.
Next thing used was one of those fancy aluminum pens, but that didn’t work in the slightest. Lastly, I tried a rolled steel pin that we use in some of our compressors and sure as shit, worked almost perfect… minus it’s size which was a little larger in diameter than a standard pencil.
So with all that said, it seems that the larger the diameter, the better it worked… or that also could of been the fact that the rolled pin was solid steel and not hollow aluminum. I assume the more conductive the metal, the better it would respond, correct? So copper or something should work better? If I can only get my hands on steel… what could I do to “amplify” the discharge so I can work with a smaller point?
any ideas?
