blog a bissl: Pilot-Stylus

11. September 2013

Pilot-Stylus

I like the small Pilot Birdie Twin 3044 for Euro 11,95 from Japan, an ideal pencil plus ball point pen for diaries or small notebooks like mine.

The “Pilot Birdie Twin” with the cap removed. You see the ball point pin.
Below the “Online Mini Touch red” with stylus pad screwed off.

For my daughter’s smartphone I had bought a stylus made in Germany: Online Mini Touch red, Euro 5,99. Incidentally: You can plug the pin at the end of the keychain into the phone’s headphone jack so as to never miss the stylus.
Styli for capacitive sensors (touch screens) unfortunately need a certain diameter to emulate a human finger, say seven millimeters. The tip must be soft and smooth and electrically conductive. They have to be attatched to enough metal, in order to be “capacitive” enough for the sensor mechanism in the device.
The tip of this particular stylus can be screwed out. And then it (barely) fits into the cap of the Pilot Birdie pencil! All I did is file off the outer cover of the cap, and screw the stylus tip in.

The pilot pencil with the top (cover) half filed off.
The sleeve (cap, cover) hides a ball point pen.
The sleeve can be turned around to cover the pencil tip.You’ve then got a ball point pen instead of a pencil.

Here the top is filed off successfully. Blop.

I had to file off a bit of the thread of the stylus’ pad too, to make it fit (not shown).

And this is the result: A cap for the Pilot Birdie with capacitive stylus tip:

Stylus type cap for the Pilot Birdie

You’ve now got a pencil with three functions: 0.5 Millimeter pencil, ball point pen, touch screen stylus.
“Challenges”: The connection of the screw top and the sleeve might be too loose. Then glue or solder it. Also: You might loose the tip. Just be careful. I managed to loose the smooth cover a couple of times. And found “Pilot” so very friendly as to send me a couple of spares free of charge! Great company.