Which pen is mighty (workable and inexpensive)..?

January 18, 2008 12:00 PM

Thanks to the community's help with this question, I was able to order a set of Wacom tablets for my computer lab. Now I've been asked how I could get replacement pens if any are lost or stolen. I need help identifying which pens will work with my tablet and what are good options in terms of cost.

I order the Wacom Bamboo Fun Medium for all the stations in our computer lab (yay!). We plan on having a checkout system for the pen and the mouse and want to minimize loss and damage as much as possible (we have locking cables for the tablets themselves). Still, we'd like to be prepared for the possibility of a lost pen. Wacom doesn't show a specific replacement pen for the Bamboo on their site - they do have a pen for the Graphire, priced at $30. I found on Amazon a Wacom pen for "penabled" Tablet PCs that costs $15. I mostly envision the pens being used for drawing programs like Illustrator, so it's okay if they're not perfect for airbrushing or painting or don't have an eraser.

So, can anyone guess if the penabled pen will work with the Bamboo? Does anyone have suggestions for low-cost replacement pens? Thanks!

posted by Slothrop to media & arts (4 comments total)

Just do a search by "bamboo fun pen" and you should get lots of hits. I actually just received one last week from Amazon. I ordered it by mistake, intending to buy the tablet+pen (and thinking I got a steal at that price, but alas I was mistaken.) What I received was indeed the actual no-foolin' pen. Just the pen. You can find slightly better prices thru Google.
posted by cuddles.mcsnuggy at 12:10 PM on January 18, 2008

Just a clarification on my above post: The pen I received is the same exact one that comes with the Wacom tablet. I do own the Bamboo Fun tablet/pen set, and the pen that came from Amazon was identical to the one the tablet came with. I ordered the black one. Returned it since then though, since I didn't need an extra pen.
posted by cuddles.mcsnuggy at 12:19 PM on January 18, 2008

cuddles - thanks. I hadn't seen that specific pen. I'd like to be able to propose a pen that's less than $30 if I can, as this is for a University lab in a cost-conscious environment. I do appreciate your pointing out the exact pen for the tablet.
posted by Slothrop at 12:40 PM on January 18, 2008

Quite a lot of what makes a Wacom tablet tick is in the pen. They are always going to be bloody expensive.

Maybe you could set up some kind of pen tagging system which alarms if a pen tries to walk out the door? Or just a pen tagging system which correlates checked out pens with student IDs and charges the last person who used any pen that comes up missing.

And a sign on the top of the monitor (for computers with tablets): DO NOT FORGET TO RETURN YOUR PEN
posted by anaelith at 1:01 PM on January 18, 2008