Broken Wacom stylus?
Roman_K2
Posts: 1,216
I dropped the stylus for my Wacom tablet today. Ok, so it fell onto a hard floor but still... I didn't realize they were so fragile? Eraser button works, tablet still sends a signal to the computer, but the stylus appears to have had the biscuit.
Wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this... AFAIK it's one of the old two-button styluses... works via either magenetic induction or capacitance. Two tiny rocker buttons along the shaft and an "Eraser" (in PhotoShop) button on the end. Pressure-sensitive nib but right now it's dead in the water as I say.
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You might find a replacement on ebay.
My Wacom pens ( Intuos 4 and Intuos Pro) have been dropped more times than I can remember- either from my clumsiness or a cat running across the desk and sending it flying. Granted I have carpeted floors but I've never had one die-yet. My tablet has also hit the floor more than once and had cats running across it. Granted that's not Ideal but it does mean that the product is tougher than you might think!
One of the fixes I've come across for fixing a lagging pen is to drop it or give it a rap on the edge of a desk and then let it sit overnight to reset the internal electronics. Believe it or not, it actually does work!! For some reason it takes several hours for it to reset. So If you haven't tossed the pen or ordered a new one give it another try. The thing just "might" have rest itself.
You also might want to try taking the nib out and reseating it... and the batteries could be getting low as well.
I had to replace my last Intuos 3 pen stylus after my kids basically played tug of war with it during an argument over who got to use it. Needless to say, neither of them are allowed to use it now.
I found it was much cheaper to order one from Amazon than from the Wacom site. So, if broken price check around as there are much better price options than buying direct from Wacom's site.
I forgot to mention, as I found after mine was in a couple of pieces the pen casing basically houses a circuit board with a coil on the end. It wouldn't surprise me if a drop onto a hard surface could damage the circuit board or break lose one of the little wires.
WACOM Pens do not use batteries, nor are they tethered in any way. I have 4 tablets, one an Intuos 3 with three pens. :)
You know... I never thought about it, but I haven't had to change batteries or anything. Does it use RFID or something? If you know in this incredibly off topic question... though it could be pertinent.
I found an article that says it uses a technology called resonant coupling.
Here's a link that explains how Wacom tablets work.
https://www.tablet4u.co.uk/techinfo.html
Yes, Field Effect Transistors are used to achieve the effect they call Resonant Coupling. It is really interesting the things that Wacom have accomplished with their tablets. In The Beginning of the "Transistor Age", we had small pocket radios with an ear phone that was powered by a crystal diode resonating to specific AM frequencies. Never needed a battery. Just a good antenna. They came with a lead ending in an alligator clip which you put on some largeish metal thing to use as the antenna. They were small, light and worked. They gained a novelty status and just disappeared in a few years. But the technology, simple as it was, stuck around and is in use today in many variations. They had a single transistor that functioned as a signal amplifier, powered by that diodes converting RF to a small electrical current. Sort of proving Nikolai Tesla's broadcast AC idea.
I am simply amazed at what all we have accomplished even in my lifetime! These tablets are one of many things I never imagined we would have when I was a high school kid, thoroughly taken by the fact we could actually draw pictures with a computer. Another was, of all the dumb things, a mouse. :)
That is just too awesome :D Thanks for the info!
Um, sorry I derailed your thread. In answer, I got 1 stylus made for each type of tablet I have. For the styluses that have both eraser as well as drawing nib tips, there are tiny coils inside and the nib inserts into a sleeve that is of some ferrous material. If I had it, I might be able to get it working again, but having it says I can see everything it is now. I might suggest contacting Wacom, IIRC the Intuos 3 axis stylus was like $39 US, and the single axis Graphire stylus was $15 US last time I bought some.
I didn't realize they were so fragile either. Where I've lived is all hardwood floors, and both me and my 3 cats have seen all my styluses hit the floor more than once. And the eraser button popped out once is the worst that's happened.
Wacom has MANY more products now than when my Intuos 3 was new. And yes, I am one of the many crazy dopes that shelled out $99 for that airbrush pen! Love my pens, and my tablets. Being able to USE your tablet is well worth another pen, yeah?
Check this page at Wacoms site: https://store.wacom.com/us/accessories/pens/
Michael
Not to worry - it's been fascinating background reading. I have the hard floors as well and I think I must have muttered "Bah ! Humbug" when I found the little safety cord in the box that the Wacom tablet came in.
I had a crystal set as a kid, and my dad had one in his day. Up here in Canada the little pocket radios were called "Clairtone" and yes they vanished quicky. I remember wanting one real bad - amazing that they would come back (in a way) as today's miniature MP3 players and radios. Ha ha just before the Walkman some people (Aiwa?) toyed with the idea of using dictation tapes as a platform for portable music.
I'm reading the book "Steve Jobs And The Next Big Thing"... quite a bit there about Xerox PARC and mice. I roared with laughter when Scotty picked up the mouse and spoke to it in the Star Trek movie.
First tablet here was the Koala Pad [external link] for the Commodore 64. Nice idea but not really useful.
Back when the 80286 was the reigning CPU on the planet, I bought a Kurta Tablet. And took it back the same day as totally useless. It would not work with any of the graphics software I had at the time. That was in the late 80's. From then on, when I saw a tablet in a store, I asked them to demo it for me. When they would, fine, and when they wouldn't I walked away. When a clerk demo'd a Wacom Graphire tablet for me, I bought one right then. Been buying Wacom tablets ever since. The two newest ones did not come with mice. That's ok cause my 'spares' drawer is getting full of Wacom Mice that have never been used.
The newest iterations of drawing on the computer are along the lines of the Cintique. Touch screens. This is where Wacom is going to take a hurting. Being able to draw right on the screen with the image is really useful. But so are the off-hand tablets.
So how have you fared with your stylus?
McG.
Still not fixed but hopefully real soon. Been reading about the Apple Pencil though -- I most strongly agree that drawing directly on the screen with the image might be the way to go! Saw the official video clip for the Pencil; related web pages indeed mention the Cintique, which I thought was a high-end Wacom...??? Maybe that is not so?!
Apparently what is hot now is you take your Pencil -- which if I'm not mistaken only works with the high-end iPad -- and you run something called Astropad. This lets you draw on the iPad with all the extra features the Pencil gives, while transmitting everything to the monitor on a Macintosh??? I am not able to test this right-now-this-minute but I'm guessing it's supposed to improve your overall workflow? Earlier the way I was seeing things headed, in my mind's eye, was I would draw a bit on the iPad with the Pencil, because this would give nice smooth curves, and I thought I would be more than happy with just saving to a USB flash drive and from there, taking it into PhotoShop (say) on the PC.
Another issue for me might be vector conversion - turning the Pencil's nice curves into vector art for typography say -- swishy fonts and the like. As with the Astropad thingy it might be better to stay with the Mac platform throughout.
Also reading the "Jobs" book by Isaacson - on my Windows laptop of course. Pretty exciting, the way the writer tells the story!
Readers here may also find the new Commodore smartphone of interest, wonder if it comes with a drawing application.
I have the Wireless adaptor for the Wacom and it's complete crap. Works 1 time out of 100. And Wacom is notorious these days for crappy drivers that need to be manually reloaded. They used to be pretty much the only game in town but now there are other tablet manufacturers so I think next time I need a tablet I might take a look at the competition. I've been pretty disappointed with Wacom's decline in quality. My original Graphire tablet worked flawlessly for years (it was an RS-232 tablet too). My Intuos is hit and miss.
I ended up getting a stylus that looks VERY SIMILAR to the original Bamboo stylus -- even says "Bamboo", came in a typical "Bamboo" accessories box and so on -- but (wait for it) it doesn't work and all of the instructions are in Japanese.
The most obvious difference between the original stylus and this new one is that there is no floating (sort of) blunt, button or pointer on the back end. The "new" stylus just has a flush end, as though there is nothing there.
So I'm sitting here, and by chance I happened to try the dull end on the broken stylus... hey, it <BLINK>WORKS FINE!!!</BLINK> So I have to ask what the heck is up with that?!!
Related: I finally got to try the Apple Pencil at their store here in my major urban center... oh yesss, definitely the cat's meow. I'm also making at least a bit of progress on the Samsung A5 2017 smartphone, which takes an optional third-party stylus - I found I really had to ask around about those though. Not bad... fine lines are hair-thin though; it's reminiscent of drawing on a latex balloon with a ball-point pen, and then letting the air out. The apps that I've tried so far are "Photoshop Sketch" and "Autodesk Sketchbook".
I recently picked up a new iPad Pro and it's great. Still think I prefer drawing on the Wacom though.
I'm sure my Paasche (sp?) air brush set me back a few grand, back in the day. Anyway Wacom's links have changed; they didn't bother telling us. On the new(er) page at http://www.wacom.com/en-ca/support/product-support/drivers it kind of implies that the Bamboo stylus is only being supported for Windows 10??! Sure hope not!
Yeah, I see that Wacom has changed big time. So have the other hardware makers. I think the touch screen on everything now is beating up on them real hard. Why use a tablet if you have use of the screen, with or without a pen? Some are fine enough resolution you can use a 'sharp' pen and draw quite well on them. I have something like 5 maybe 6 tablets, and two are touch and pen. They are all Wacom, and all work well with their drivers loaded. The Intuos 3 6 x 8 with its pens is still the best by far. If I find a 23 to 27 inch LED monitor with Touch screen, that will be my newest Pen Tablet! Ha!
Wacom will have to make radical changes just to survive. I hope they do, honestly.
You know, I never liked those "glossy" gorilla glass screens; maybe for some purists the original Wacom experience is nicer than hard, unyielding glass?
In some ways the "Jony", shiny, Samsung designs are nice, in other ways not so much - like I put a bumpy rubber slip cover over my unit! Also Google Books has soft lighting and gentle page-turning animation - bit of a surprise, this.
It just now occurred to me to try the latest tablet drivers, which are downloadable from the Wacom page.
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=10594 was curious to know if my whole tablet was cheaper than replacing the pen? Incidentally, I accidentally put pro drivers on the computer and it now works like a pro version. I think it has the same guts as a pro version and they cripple it with the drivers but its just a guess.
Interesting link... Wow, I have never heard of a tablet for under $50 US. Again the stylus looks an awful lot like the Wacom Bamboo one, thanks.
It's true that with some electronics and peripherals, especially stuff that's off the well beaten track it may seem like it's a "you may as well get a whole new one" and/or "good luck with getting replacement parts for that" sort of thing.
My wife just got a 22" Cintiq and I inherited her 13" Cintiq but ATM I'm using a Bamboo and its very rugged and taken a lot of abuse. The stylus has been tossed around on hard and soft floors and I've had no problems with it. Depending on the brand Wacom you have the stylus is around $20-$40 from what I'm finding. You can get a new Bamboo on Amazon for $58 so replacing a stylus that cost $20-$40 your better off just buying a new Wacom
Thanks. I didn't see any $58 ones so they must go fast. Darned pens come in so many versions and "generations", arrrgh. Also the listings often don't mention where exactly the listed item fits into the grand scheme of things - I have to assume that the focus today would be on the latest and greatest tech, eg. something more along the lines of the Apple Pencil or the Samsung "S" series pen(s).
Here's a video of the first-generation, pre-2009 stuff, which is the one I'm personally concerned with at the moment (Youtube link). I must be the world's slowest adopter!