I long lamented the non-existence of an auto-advance cartridge. It seemed so obviously awesome and worthwhile — the ultimate swappable component in the MP world, a self-contained mechanism of the coolest kind.
Then a few weeks back I learned of an auto-advance cartridge from someone on Knockology. Unfortunately, multiple recent searches for their comments about this item came up empty, so perhaps the chain was deleted. If someone can find that chain and provide a link, I’d appreciate it.
Kayou makes this cartridge and serves it up in a retractable format that is fairly identical to the operation of a retractable ballpoint. The outside diameter of the cartridge is 6.22mm and fortunately it works with many pens. It requires very minor effort to add an extension to get the length right.
The version I am familiar with is the Ultraman branded edition. There are several colors and characters emblazoned on the pencils from this series, but I bought the one with the simplest black cartridge. It simply says ‘Ultraman’ in silver text on the cartridge. The Ultraman character theming is the real branding on these pencils. The ‘Kayou’ brand is not even on the box, but it does appear on the center of the pencil.
Here I fitted it to a Sakura Ballsign ID Pen. I am testing it out on various pens and pencils. I haven’t found an MP that can accept it without modification, but I am still working on it. Pretty fun.
