Product Description
I present my Pen Refill Connectors (long version), designed to allow the high quality Japanese plastic rod type refills to be used in certain pens and specifically multi-pens, which use a longer version of the same 3mm diameter plastic tubed refill. The model contains 8 connectors, attached together with sprues.
An example of a possible use for these connectors is modding the BiC 4 Colours multi-pen, which is a very popular and functional pen, but is let down by it's ink refills. These refills are 104mm long, so are slightly longer than the nicer Pilot, Pentel, Uni and Zebra gel and ballpoint multi-pen refills available. As shown in the above photos; the connector can be used to join a section of the original refill's plastic tube to one of the aforementioned nicer refills. The replacement refill may also need to be cut shorter, so the resultant joined parts are the same total length as the original refill. The cut section of the original refill needs to be at least 12mm long, for it to fit both one end of the connector and the end of the coloured activation plunger, which retains it into the pen.
Possible suitable replacement refills are:
88mm long:
Tombow - BR-(CL/CLE/CS2)
Uni- SXR-80-(XX) Jetstream
93mm long:
Pilot - Hi-Tec C Coleto LHKRF-10C(X)
98-99mm long:
Ohto - G-95NP, No.99(X)NP
Pentel - BKSS7, BKSSN5, BXS(X), XBXST5, XLRNT5, XBGRN(X) Sliccies
Pilot - BVRF-(X)
Uni - SXR-89-(XX) Jetstream, UMR-109-(XX) Signo
Zebra - EK-(XX) Surari, NJK-(0.X) Sarasa
The connector needs to be printed in the polished white or coloured plastics, as the smooth polished finish is functionally desirable. The refill tube section is retained, by the connector, using friction. The connectors will need to be separated from their sprues, using a sharp craft knife or zero angle side cutters.
Some of the above mentioned refills have a narrower internal tube diameter than the original BiC refills have, so one end of the connector will need it's wider tip section trimmed down slightly, to allow the refill to fit over it without breaking it. Due to the very varied nature of pen design, I cannot guarantee that this adapter will work with any specific pen, although I've made every effort to make it as universal as possible.
I plan to make as many refill types compatible with as many host pens as possible, so If you have any suggestions on refill adapters, please let me know and I can hopefully make it available, depending on the relative sizes involved. I have now created dimensioned drawings of over 80 standard and obscure ballpoint, gel and rollerball refill types, so I like to think that I have a fair idea of what is and isn't possible.