Stylus ideas

[Neelix]

I'm guessing he means the other side of the tip -- the one that goes into the dart casing. 

If you removed that end of the tip there'd be no way to attach it to the barrel.

- Neelix

 

[Neelix]

Not if you only cut some of it off, then round it off, which is not too different from cleaning up the Pandora stylus.

You can't have the tip both long and short at the same time, so pick which you prefer and go with that.

I suppose...

Personally I think that would be more trouble than it's worth.

- Neelix

 

[rygD]

An $80 stylus is more money than it is worth.

 

[Neelix]

An $80 stylus is more money than it is worth.

Agreed.   I'm not sure I understand what your point is though.

- Neelix

 

[Grench]

An $80 stylus is more money than it is worth.

Don't bet on it.

No modifications to Pandora. Dart fits in and secures. In fact, even though this dart is longer than the stock stylus, it stolill has extra room. I'm going to need to order some 1cm or so longer shafts for them.


There was concern that the long tip would be too much. It isn't a problem, it's BETTER. I can se 90% of the relevant surrounding info.


Perfect dart Is 5.15mm dia barrel M3 type.


Short shafts are a bit too short.


Concept proof complete.

 

[WizardStan]

That's pretty cool.

But still, $86 for 3 darts when you only need one is still kind of like $80 for a single stylus. Unless you for some reason intend to use all three, personally I would only need one.

Is there anywhere to get something like this in the $10 range for one?

 

[comradekingu]

Probably if you order 1000 they can be had for much cheaper. There certainly is potential in this idea.

Is the +1 cm shaft a standard size?

 

[Grench]

That's pretty cool.

But still, $86 for 3 darts when you only need one is still kind of like $80 for a single stylus. Unless you for some reason intend to use all three, personally I would only need one.

Is there anywhere to get something like this in the $10 range for one?

What I'm doing is 'proof of concept' and biting the development bullet for everyone else by paying through the nose for high $$$ darts. They work -fantastic- as a stylus BTW.

Probably if you order 1000 they can be had for much cheaper. There certainly is potential in this idea.

Is the +1 cm shaft a standard size?

Yes - there is a +1 cm standard size shaft - I have a set of those on the way.

What I envision is contracting with an M3 dart manufacturer to create a stainless steel 5mm-5.15mm diameter dart barrels of appropriate length and a nylon or aluminum shaft with a 'nub' to make extraction easier.

They don't have to be nearly as finely machined as the darts I bought. Those were 'proof of concept' and a lot cheaper to buy that way than it would be to have the same thing milled as a one-off.

Those expensive darts aren't going to waste. I plan to use them - to play darts.

 

[fusion_power]

Are these dart tips made out of plastic? Looks thin, do they bend?

 

[Grench]

Are these dart tips made out of plastic? Looks thin, do they bend?

They are made out of nylon. Although they will bend if you put the point on a desk and lean on it, they do not bend under normal 'stylus' type use. Also, the dart tips themselves are ~$2.50 for a bag of 50 with your choice of color - black, blue, neon, white (likely others). They're built to repeatedly fly into a dart board. They will hold up very nicely under stylus use conditions.

 

[comradekingu]

I really like the idea of something bog-standard, with replaceable tips that offer some choice (short or long tip).  Sounds easy to purchase, easy to determine the quality of, and is not reliant upon a single manufacturer.

And you can even use it to play darts, if you want Its just such a neat concept.

Do you think the dart will snap in place if it has a short tip?

 

[Grench]

I really like the idea of something bog-standard, with replaceable tips that offer some choice (short or long tip).  Sounds easy to purchase, easy to determine the quality of, and is not reliant upon a single manufacturer.

And you can even use it to play darts, if you want Its just such a neat concept.

Do you think the dart will snap in place if it has a short tip?

The dart pictured above -has- a short tip. Scale is hard to depict, but the tip of that dart isn't appreciably longer than you would have on a sharpened #2 pencil or most mechanical pencils.

It -does- snap in place as-is using the Pandora's internal plastic side-pressure spring. After that last picture where I had it fully inserted into the stylus slot it was actually a bit of a pain getting it out. The weight of the tungsten dart helped in this case. I have longer barrels, longer shafts and a couple of sets of 'add weight' spacers on their way that I'll be playing around with soon. Yes, this puts me another $200+/- or so 'in' for the next stage of this experiment.

The big part of THIS experiment was general proof of concept on diameter, weight, tip strength and fitment into the Pandora. It surpassed my expectations on all of the above so I'm taking it another step.

The end-game to this is to contract with a dart manufacturer to create specific length M3 dart barrels out of cheaper material (stainless) to use standard M3 tips and have a screw-on notched bit to connect where the shaft & flights would normally be. It would net out a relatively inexpensive but high quality weighted stylus with easy to obtain replaceable tips.

The screw-on notched bit may even be able to be made out of the Pyra's standard molding process - don't know. I haven't run any of this by ED yet. Just flying on my own at this stage with an experiment where I can reuse all of the parts.

 

[iprice]

I'm liking what I'm seeing

 

[rygD]

Grench asked me to post my questions and his reply here, for everyone.  Quoting is messing up for me, so I apologize for not using proper tags. 
 

How does the weight, and weight distribution when used, feel in your hand?
How is the tip (any flexing or anything, does it loosen from the shaft threads, does it work well on the screen)?
Can you remove the part where the fins are supposed to go without damage, and if so how is that part attached?
I can't remember what makes the stylus click in, but if the back was shaped properly do you think it would stay in the case well?
What is your total cost for what you have right now, and how many darts and tips do you have?
Would the ridges on the shaft tear up soft hands/fingers with heavy touchscreen game play?
In the picture it looks like you might be able to increase the diameter slightly. Is this true?
What are the dimensions of your dart(s)?

Weight and weight distribution are pretty much ideal. The bulk of the weight is in the knurled barrel where you grip it.

No real flex on the tip under normal use as stylus scenario. It works perfectly on the screen - better than the stock stylus IMHO. The threads are solid - they're built to fly repeatedly into a dart board without loosening. They're removable with modest effort.

The stylus clicks in by a side-friction plastic spring device which just happens to land on the knurled portion of the dart where the fingers hold it - perfect.

My total cost right now isn't reflective of what it would cost to produce a dedicated stylus barrel. These are on the very high end of M3 mark darts at $80-110 per set of 3 barrels + $4 per set of 3 shafts + $2.50 per bag of 50 tips. I have a 1cm longer set of barrels, longer shafts, more tips, a new dart board, 3 other sets of darts and a dart case coming. All told I'm probably $350 into this, but plan to play more darts anyway so none of it is a 'loss'.

The ridges on the barrel (shaft connects to the barrel to mount the flights in) are knurled for dart play. I didn't get any discomfort from using it, though I don't think we'll need to keep the knurls on the final version - kind of overkill in the machine department for a stylus.

The stock stylus diameter is 5mm. These darts are 5.15mm - so already 'bigger' in diameter than the standard Pandora stylus. It may be possible to go up some fraction of a mm, but not much. These do not stick or drag on entry/exit (with exception of the spring clip).

Dimensions of the darts are: M3 darts with 5.15mm barrel diameter. Point + barrel + 'short' shaft ~ 106mm. Stock Pandora stylus is 100mm, but as you can see there is additional capacity in the stylus slot that the Pandora stylus doesn't use now.

 

[rygD]

Also, the dart tips themselves are ~$2.50 for a bag of 50 with your choice of color - black, blue, neon, white (likely others).

Hmmm, that sounds kinda cool to me for such an insignificant thing.

The end-game to this is to contract with a dart manufacturer to create specific length M3 dart barrels out of cheaper material (stainless) to use standard M3 tips and have a screw-on notched bit to connect where the shaft & flights would normally be.

It will be great if you can get someone to do this for us cheaply.  As it stands the cost per "stylus" is less than a few options I was looking at, and the quality will be much higher than cheapest of those, which was 3D printing in metal.  I personally like the weight of tungsten, but if using a different material reduces the price I suspect more people will be interested.

The screw-on notched bit may even be able to be made out of the Pyra's standard molding process - don't know.

I was thinking of something like this when I asked about the back end.  If that piece is not made for use with this it shouldn't be too hard to use parts from a stock stylus, or get it printed, at least for the early stages.

Are you still considering something that extends?

 

[Grench]

Also, the dart tips themselves are ~$2.50 for a bag of 50 with your choice of color - black, blue, neon, white (likely others).

Hmmm, that sounds kinda cool to me for such an insignificant thing.

The end-game to this is to contract with a dart manufacturer to create specific length M3 dart barrels out of cheaper material (stainless) to use standard M3 tips and have a screw-on notched bit to connect where the shaft & flights would normally be.

It will be great if you can get someone to do this for us cheaply.  As it stands the cost per "stylus" is less than a few options I was looking at, and the quality will be much higher than cheapest of those, which was 3D printing in metal.  I personally like the weight of tungsten, but if using a different material reduces the price I suspect more people will be interested.

The screw-on notched bit may even be able to be made out of the Pyra's standard molding process - don't know.

I was thinking of something like this when I asked about the back end.  If that piece is not made for use with this it shouldn't be too hard to use parts from a stock stylus, or get it printed, at least for the early stages.
Are you still considering something that extends?

I've given up on the idea of having a spring loaded expanding stylus. It simply isn't needed if we already can handle a 115mm weighted one.

The weight inherent in the 'dart stylus' above gives a great feeling of control and stability.

I have a few 'spare' Pandora stylus (styli?) and I think I have an M3 0.5 tap. The catch will be if I can figure out a way to drill a 3mm hole INTO one end of a cut-in-half Pandora stylus. Not a lot of room for error on that. I have a drill press, but even then the slop is nearly 0.25mm.

What would be ideal, though, is if I can get the measurements down, does someone out there have a 3D ABS plastics printer that could print a couple of shafts/caps/ends that screw on with the notch to match the Pandora? I should have the ideal measurements for this butt end of the stylus down solid soon.

 

[rygD]

Ah, I guess I didn't think through the dimensions of the hole in the Pandora stylus piece.  Maybe it isn't worth the risk.  I don't know the cost to print something of that size, but it won't require as much precision. 

You can send a prototype here and I will test it for you for free. 

 

[comradekingu]

Turns out i didnt purchase the mini-darts after all, well well.

Does the heaviness of tungsten make sense to pay for when the intended use is stylus?

Here is a chart with the details/variables ive been able to read up on:

                       TIP(nylon)     -screw-           GRIP(tungsten, alu, brass stainless)                 -screw-                 SHAFT (nylon?)      TAIL (no need)           TOTAL LENGTH

GOOD                   long              2BA                       55mm long                                              2BA  ??                         +1 cm                                                    Longest

BAD                      short      metaltip convert            50 mm short                                           BSF 1/4"                        regular                                                  Shortest

???                        long               ???                        55mm long                                             M3    5mm                     irregular                                                Longest

• Barrel Ø = 5.15mm M3 type
• Made in England or US

Cost should be something < 5dollars per dart in bulk. Nylon tips are an almost gratis commodity.

 

[rygD]

I think I would like the weight of tungsten specifically because it will be used as a stylus.  Currently, I wouldn't pay the price of a whole set of darts just to test using one as a stylus.  Or at least, not the ones I saw.  If I could get them at the price you mentioned I might.  I should go look around some more, now that we have more specific details.

 

[Grench]

Turns out i didnt purchase the mini-darts after all, well well.

Does the heaviness of tungsten make sense to pay for when the intended use is stylus?

Here is a chart with the details/variables ive been able to read up on:

                       TIP(nylon)     -screw-           GRIP(tungsten, alu, brass stainless)                 -screw-                 SHAFT (nylon?)      TAIL (no need)           TOTAL LENGTH

GOOD                   long              2BA                       55mm long                                              2BA  ??                         +1 cm                                                    Longest

BAD                      short      metaltip convert            50 mm short                                           BSF 1/4"                        regular                                                  Shortest

• Barrel Ø = 5.15mm M3 type
• Made in England or US

Cost should be something < 5dollars per dart in bulk. Nylon tips are an almost gratis commodity.

I suspect you may be getting a bit confused over the types of darts that are out there. There are 3 main ones, and they are -not- parts compatible with each other. 1/4", 2BA and M3.

1/4" is an 'old' standard and the barrels have 1/4" female threads to accept 1/4" threaded points. The dart tips carry the male threads. This means that the barrel diameter MUST be greater than 1/4" - and since 1/4" = 6.35mm, that means this will not work.

2BA is a very common and current standard. 2BA (British Association) threaded dart barrels have a female 2BA ~ 4.7mm threads to accept 2BA threaded points. The dart tips carry the male threads. In order to have any wall thickness on the barrel surrounding the 2BA female threads, the minimum barrel thickness winds up being >= 5.5mm, that means this will come close, but still not work.

There is a new, though uncommon, standard called M3. This turns the dart assembly methodology on it's head by having barrels with 3mm 0.5 threaded male ends instead of female ends. The dart tips are female with 1mm wall thickness ~ 5mm OD. Still, most of these darts expand out from the 5mm to give room to add more weight to the barrels. The Pandora stylus is 5mm, the stylus pocket is ~5.2mm. Those wind up being the critical dimensions in doing this. By using M3 darts with very narrow barrels (5.15mm), the use of a dart as stylus becomes possible.

I'm working on something else that may actually make this possible with only using the M3 dart tips (cheap) combined with MUCH cheaper non-dart components. Right now I'm waiting on a shipment from China to try this out - so don't hold your breath.

More to come - but it might be a couple of weeks.