Heirloom Quality Capacitive Touch Stylus

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By Adam Flaherty
Posted 2012/01/31 @ 3:00 am
Category Computers & Mobile, Tools

Check out this heirloom quality capacitive touch stylus from Talking Rock, Georgia maker Stephanie McLaughlin. Each stylus Stephanie makes is hand-turned on a lathe and made from quality materials.

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9 Responses to Heirloom Quality Capacitive Touch Stylus

critical on January 31st, 2012 at 7:09 am said:

An ‘heirloom’ quality product for a technology that may not be in use 25 years from now??? sigh

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- Adam Flaherty (@adfm) on January 31st, 2012 at 9:14 am said:
  
  I’ve got a MAC IIci from 1989 that runs Photoshop. I keep it around to remind me how far we’ve progressed (not that far, IMO). The iPad is modeled after the Dynabook, which is an idea that predates the MAC IIci by a couple of decades. As crude as capacitive and resistive touch are, I think they and similar HCI technologies will remain viable for the next couple of decades, at least. That’s plenty of time for another generation to develop and for it to remain fashionable. Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but they’re dumbing things down a bit.
  
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- AndyL on January 31st, 2012 at 11:50 pm said:
  
  I’ll bet that even if we continue to use capacitive screens, I’ll bet these clumsy rounded-tip styluses will become obsolete pretty fast.
  
  If people want tablets and phones to replace paper, we need styluses that give us better accuracy and pressure sensitivity than using your finger. That means either using better screens, or better styluses.
  
  Already better styluses exist like the Jot+, and I’ll bet they’re only the begining.
  
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  Adam Flaherty (@adfm) on February 1st, 2012 at 2:06 am said:
  
  Meh. Passive and active RF styli have existed for ages. The newer tablets from HTC and other manufactures are beginning to employ them again because they’re starting to see that people want more from their touch screens and a finger isn’t going to cut it. You want pressure, tilt, and orientation. The thing is, most people just want a finger replacement. It’s going to take forever for manufactures to agree on a input method, so I don’t see anything becoming standard anytime soon.
  
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Joseph Watson on January 31st, 2012 at 8:18 am said:

I started doing pen turnings a while back saw the kits for these and I am thinking about turning one myself. if you have a wood lathe the kits are inexpensive just need a pen mandrel to hold the work on. the kits are sold here http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/ as well as http://www.pennstateind.com/

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Dirk Lucas on January 31st, 2012 at 8:38 am said:

Dunno, I see some ways to improve the thing (Tip could be more pointed, could be a pen as well), but how did he do the circuit board aspect? Resin coated colour print, or is it for real?

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- Sam Houston on January 31st, 2012 at 9:32 am said:
  
  I went to her Etsy page and it looks to be an actual circuit board and special silicon tip. I’m curious as to where they came from. These styluses are only $50 so there must be a commercial supplier for the innards and tips.
  
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  Dirk Lucas on January 31st, 2012 at 12:00 pm said:
  
  I see, you can buy these as “pen blanks”. Didn’t know such a thing existed.
  
  (Found it while researching on the “Macro-Molecular Metal” she refers to on another Etsy page. But to me that seems to be metallic sawdust+plastic.)
  
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  Joseph Watson on February 6th, 2012 at 7:56 am said:
  
  the circuit board in resin is a pen blank part you can buy to make the stylus they have them at the links i referenced. I haven’t used them myself I’ve only used wood for pens.
  
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