S-Pen Anatomy- What's Inside It

I just took a "scalpel and tweezers" to open the S-Pen and have prepared this image for you.

Check it out to see whats inside your great Galaxy notes' S-Pen!! All the parts are arranged in the picture in the right order as they are actually placed in the S-Pen.

Just to complete the label legends:

1: The Nib (The front end of the nib is what we see pointing out and use for writing/drawing etc. The other end of this nib has a "protrusion" that fits in the hole of the "cap" )

2: The Cap (as mentioned, one end of this cap has a small hole that fits in the nib, while the other end has a "protrusion" that fits in the "rubber ring"). I checked with a magnet and found its made of "iron".

3: The Ring (it is made of rubber and sits between the "cap" and the "coil" part of the electronic circuit.

4a: Coil: Its wounded on a little iron rod and connected with the "electronic circuit".

4b: Electronic circuit: It has a little button (thats where I have marked the arrow and labeled as 4b). This little button is what actually gets pressed when we press the "external button" of S-Pen.

5: The tail/terminal end of the S-Pen: This is what is needs to be pulled out to take out the entire circuitry and the little parts out of the S-Pen!!

6: The External Button: This is whats needs to be TWIZZED out, so that the entire circuitry and the little parts can slide out from the terminal end of the S-Pen!!

7: The main body: You can see this body and make out now how everything is fit-in properly!

I did not find any direct source of electricity in the S-Pen, and thus based on principles of electronics, its apparent that the small little movement (kinetic energy) produced by the "NIB" due to action of writing/drawing etc.must be exciting the electrons (electric energy) in the wounded COIL (magnetic influx), which is used by the circuit for appropriate action!! (Well, this is my own guess and I am welcoming appropriate suggestions.

So that's it!! I opened my S-Pen as it was not functioning properly after it fell down due to which I was required to "press the pen" a lot to write / draw. So I just opened and just "RE-PLACED" respective parts properly and my S-Pen is working fine now!!!

I guess this info can be useful if you have similar troubles!! Nevertheless, this ANATOMY is still helpful to SEE into this beautiful tool of this Superb Device!!!

And yesss... if you found this useful... a click at the THANKS BUTTON shall well be appreciated!!!

Ravindra9 said:

I did not find any direct source of electricity in the S-Pen, and thus based on principles of electronics, its apparent that the small little movement (kinetic energy) produced by the "NIB" due to action of writing/drawing etc.must be exciting the electrons (electric energy) in the wounded COIL (magnetic influx), which is used by the circuit for appropriate action!! (Well, this is my own guess and I am welcoming appropriate suggestions.

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I'm pretty sure it's magnetic resonance not kinetic motion used to generate the power for the s-pen. That's what the coil is for. When the pen get's close enough to the screen's surface, the small magnetic field that is emitted by the screen is picked up by the coil and hence power is transferred wirelessly. Normally AMOLED displays do not generate any significant magnetic fields, so this is something that specifically needs to be done on the Note with Faraday grid either behind the screen or integrated into the screen itself. Basically it's a way of very accurately and actively tracking the s-pen's location.

I think this is also the reason that the Note specifically has warnings about keeping it away from any other strong magnetic fields; it could interfere or permanently damage the magnetic nature of the s-pen's functionality.

Jade Eyed Wolf said:

I'm pretty sure it's magnetic resonance not kinetic motion used to generate the power for the s-pen.

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Yup, as manhattan212 mentions, it's a Wacom digitizer. Almost any Wacom digitizer pen will work with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacom#Technology

Wacom tablets use a patented electromagnetic resonance technology.[22] Since the tablet provides power to the pen through resonant coupling, no battery or cord is required for the pointing device. As a result, there are no batteries inside the pen (or the accompanying puck), which makes them slimmer.

Under the tablet's surface (or LCD in the case of the Cintiq) is a printed circuit board with a grid of multiple send/receive coils and a magnetic reflector attached behind the grid array. In send mode, the tablet generates a close-coupled electromagnetic field (also known as a B-field) at a frequency of 531 kHz. This close-coupled field stimulates oscillation in the pen's coil/capacitor (LC) circuit when brought into range of the B-field. Any excess resonant electromagnetic energy is reflected back to the tablet. In receive mode, the energy of the resonant circuit’s oscillations in the pen is detected by the tablet's grid. This information is analyzed by the computer to determine the pen's position, by interpolation and Fourier analysis of the signal intensity. In addition, the pen communicates other vital information, such as pen tip pressure, side-switch status, tip vs. eraser orientation, and the ID number of the tool (to differentiate between different pens. mice, etc.). For example, applying more or less pressure to the tip of the pen changes the value of the pen's timing circuit capacitor. This signal change can be communicated in an analog or digital method. An analog implementation would modulate the phase angle of the resonant frequency, and a digital method is communicated to a modulator which distributes the information digitally to the tablet. The tablet forwards this and other relevant tool information in packets, up to 200 times per second, to the computer.​

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eug said:

Yup, as manhattan212 mentions, it's a Wacom digitizer. Almost any Wacom digitizer pen will work with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacom#Technology

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Thanks. Well explained. This is exactly how tablet pens like Thinkpad X220t work...

Wireless Energy in Galaxy Note

Amazing just how much technology is surrounding the Note. Even in places where you don't immediately expect.

I was wondering how S Pen functioned from first sight, considering that it had button that send signal to Note, but no mention about the battery anywhere and no opening for it in the pen. It's superb to use Tesla's wireless energy transmission methods to power S Pen!

Samsung could have earned extra credit if they spoke about this technology in the marketing, but I guess they did not want to make it sound too sophisticated. Which is probably right strategy for majority of users.