Touch screen stylus

[WmRMeyers]

Yup definitely. But resistive touchscreens are a different critter entirely. I was talking about competing strategies used in capacitive touchscreens. Within the umbrella of capacitive touchscreens there are Surface Capacitance and Projected Capacitance screens, and Projected Capacitance screens can be broken down even further to Mutual Capacitance and Self Capacitance. And I think there are even more sub-categories. I believe there are also devices which apply an oscillating signal to the ITO pads to detect capacitive coupling, and others measure changes in static voltages. It's very confusing but based on my rudimentary understanding I had figured that some screens would couple better than others with a stylus. But I don't know what I'm talking about.

Once upon a time, I was a competent electronics technician. No wizard, like some, but I could fix broken satellite equipment with the best of them. And trained several of them myself. I'm not quite to the point where I regard it as black magic, but I may be getting there. As far as programming the equipment, my salad days for that were long ago. Designing equipment? Nope. Though I could give the folks who do a few pointers based on my skills as a maintainer. "Do NOT put the controls so close together that you will activate one control while trying to activate another." "Leave room for the maintainer to put his or her hands inside so they can work on the machine." "DO NOT expect all maintainers to have size XXXS hands." Mine happen to be XL, and I've worked with folks who made my hands look small.

Bill

[Toolmaker51]

Great point about the metallicized blue plastic. Many such articles are painted, not molded; while the product (pen body) is black.
Guess what element is used to produce that?
Carbon.

[JoeVanGeaux]

For what its worth for experimenters out there, from time-to-time I seem to wash out all the natural skin oil in my hands and, apparently, also my fingertips. So, touch-screening can become a problem. I thought about the issue a bit several years ago and decide to try swiping across the screen with either end of a small (and likely depleted) AAA battery because one was sitting on my workbench. Behold! The poor man's stylus!

I can't recall exactly that first time which pole I used but I just tired it on my new(ish) iPhone by using the negative "flat" end. I thought sure I used the positive "nubby" end on my Panasonic Toughbook, but now I'm not so sure.