Easy Cell Phone Mechanical Auto Tapper From Old CD ROM Drive.

Make a machine to auto tap your phone in minutes! Here we will build a small machine that utilizes a small motor and a homemade stylus to tap your phone screen repeatedly and assist you in your favorite mobile game. All made from stuff you probably have lying around your house!

Tools you will need:
Screwdriver
Pliers
Tin snips
Duct tape
Hot glue gun
Soldering iron
Hobby knife
2 part epoxy (I use JB Kwik)

Materials you will need:
Old busted CD ROM drive (one that doesn't read disk but still spins)
Some scrap wire (I used old speaker wire)
2 paper clips
Some aluminum foil
Foam padding
AA battery

Take your CD ROM drive apart, there will be 4 or 6 screws on the bottom. We need 3 parts from the drive. First, set aside the 2 pieces of the metal cover and the plastic piece from the door of the drive. Next, locate the electric drive motor. You may need to de-solder it from the board. Set it aside also and file the rest of the drive under "trash".

Now, using the flat part of the CD drive metal casing, cut out a small arm to rotate the stylus and drill a small hole in it. Affix this arm to the electric motor with the 2 part epoxy taking great care to keep the epoxy only where you need it and not gluing the motor itself (see pic). Then solder your wires to the pos and neg post of the motor.

Take your paper clips. One should be bent straight, with a small 90 degree turn at the end. This will be the stylus. The other should be bent in a loop. This can be done by wrapping it around the shaft of a screwdriver (see pics). Then bend a 90 degree turn approx 3/4 of an inch from the loop. This loop will guide the stylus as it moves up and down.

Using the large part of the CD drive casing and your tin snips, construct a tray for the phone to sit in. It should be bigger than your phone so you will be able to move it around under the clicker. Cover all the sharp edges with duct tape to prevent cutting yourself. Now cut a piece of foam the size of your tray. The foam is crucial to absorb shock and keep your phone from getting damaged.

Now we glue it all together. Warm up the hot snot and start by gluing the guide loop we made to the middle of the door we took from the CD ROM drive. We can glue the motor to one end of the door, and the other end will be glued to the base. You may need to take a hobby knife and trim some plastic away to get everything to sit flat. Feed the stylus paper clip through the guide hole and feed the 90 degree end through the arm we attached to the motor. Bend the paper clip around the arm, leaving a gap to allow it to rotate (see pic). Run the wire from the motor underneath the foam out to the front of the machine, and glue the foam in place. Now with the assembly almost complete, set your phone on the padding and trim the stylus so at its lowest point it is 1/4 inch above the screen on your phone. The paper clip will damage the phone screen, and should not extend far enough to actually touch it.

In order for the phone to register a tap, It has to be touched by a piece of foil approx the size of the area of your finger that touches the screen. So use your foil to make a small circle about 1/4 inch in diameter. Using a small amount of super glue, affix it to the end of the stylus arm, using your phone to make sure that at its lowest point it is just touching your phone screen. Not too hard, not too soft (Just like Boys 2 Men).

Now we're all done. Place your phone on the base, and tape your AA battery between the 2 ends of the wire. The motor will spring to life and you will spring to the top of the leader board in your favorite mobile game. Good luck and happy building! Please be sure to vote for me in the first time authors contest!


THINGS TO IMPROVE
An actual battery compartment
An on/off switch
Some way to adjust the tapper to hit different areas of the screen

Maybe if someone was inclined, they could even set it up on X and Y worm gears and program it to execute a series of clicks on different areas of the screen with an Arduino. The possibilities are endless! (OK, maybe not endless, but numerous.)


If you build it, leave a comment!!