Any engineers here that can help me fix my earphones?

[Oktoberfest]

So I'm in the process of trying to solder my earphones into a new stereo plug since the sound in one ear is cut out. I cut some of the outer wiring off so the insides are exposed. So now I'm just having trouble figuring out what I'm seeing.

Here's pic:

I'm quite sure the two middle wires (or at least the copper one) will be soldered to the ground terminal on the new plug. I'm not sure what I should be soldering to the other two terminals (the left and right channels). Should I be going after those small colored (green and red) wires? Or that bright yellowish fluffy stuff? Or something completely different?

 

[daw123]

I may be wrong (its a while since I've soldered headphone cabling), but I think the two middle green and red banded insulated wires are the left and right channels and the copper wire strands (which you need to twist together) on the right hand side is the ground. The white fluffy stuff is just insulation. Remove the insulation off the 'red' and 'green' cables and solder away matching up the three pairs of wires together.

Yep, I was right:
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/howtorepairheadphones.html

Funnily enough I have to repair my headphones as well 😀

Edit: To clarify if you've still got plenty of cable left, solder on a new heaphone jack using the info in the link I provided.

If not, then make sure that you strip off enough of the insulation from the 3x pairs of matching cables; twist each pair of cables together (putting on the heatshrink first); solder each pair individually; fold back the solded connection on itself; slide the heatshrink over (so each pair of cables is insulated from each other); shrink the heatshrink using a lighter over the 3x soldered connections; then bundle up the 3x connected cables and wrap the whole lot in electrical insulating tape (or you can use a larger diameter heatshrink, but make sure that you slide this over the three combined cables before doing any soldering).

At the end you will have something like this: (although these are fan cables - but you get the idea).

Heatshrink: http://www.heatshrink-online.co.uk/heatshrink/cat_146269--004-Black-Heatshrink-21-Ratio.html
Make sure that you get the correct (un-shrunk) diameter heatshrink. You don't need internally glued.

 

[Oktoberfest]

sorry I should probably describe my picture more in detail. From the very left to right: very thin green wires; insulation; red/green wire; copper wire; insulation; very thin red wires (are not copper colored)

So I should twist the very thin green and red wire bunches together and that will be my ground? While the thick copper colored and red/green wires (both in the middle) are my left and right channels?

 

[brblx]

stereo is 3 wires, daw123 has it right. all the loose wiring is the ground, it probably just looks different because some of it is more oxidized.

you may have to use trial and error to get the channels (the two small wires with plastic insulation) right- twist the wires together and plug in your headphones, taking care not to let the wires short against each other. you can use a bit of electrical tape to cover them if needed. play some music with the fader all the way to the right- if it comes out of your left can, swap the the wires. be sure you've got it right before you solder.

 

[daw123]

I've just fixed my headphones.

You need to determine which wire does what. As mentioned previously you will have 3 wire types; the green and red (or left and right) channels and the ground.

The easiest way to do this, without using trial and error, is to use a digital multimeter. Measure the resistance from the end of each wire to either the headphone speaker (which you will have to take apart) or the jack. At the headphone speaker end; each speaker with have a ground and a channel which will be either red or green (or alternatively left or right) according to which speaker it is.

At the jack end you have this:

If there is no resistance, between the two ends, then they are not connected. You are looking for the wires which have resistance between the two ends you are measuring.

btw I worked out which section of the jack corresponded to what by measuring the resistance back to the wires in the headphone cable, which I had exposed. Luckily for me, each wire was colour coded (see pictures below).

Once you've determined, which of the wires corresponds to the red and green channels and ground (black), you can then splice and solder the same wire types together, as I described previously.

These are some photos I took when I fixed my headphones earlier today (sorry if the quality is crap - they were taken on my Blackberry).

Exposing the wires in the headphone lead (note the black, green and red colour coding):

The three pairs of wires soldered together:

I then wrapped each spliced-together pair of wires in electrical insulating tape, then covered the join with heat shrink. Voila, the finished repair:

btw, I found that when I burnt off the insulation covering each wire, the burn residue (carbon) left on the wire made the wire difficult to solder.

 

[herm0016]

dear god, is that more cable all twisted up in the picture? you should take better care of it.

 

[daw123]

dear god, is that more cable all twisted up in the picture?

Yes, it is.

The cable on these headphones is severely twisted and coiled. Its impossible to straighten (I've tried).

The reason that I had to repair the cable is because it got a kink (I have no idea why or how), which got so bad that the wires inside became damaged and the headphones stopped working. Hence I cut out the section that had the kink.

I will be replacing it soon with wireless headphones.

 

[Oktoberfest]

ok I have a better idea of what I'm seeing now. So I can ignore the wire that's red/green twisted together (since apparently it's for the mic)?

 

[Heatsrink]

Using Polyolefin heat shrink to stop shorting occurring, you can use some heat shrink in clear and without using any HEAT to shrink the tubing down, try it with boiling water, great if outdoors or when blackouts occur from http://www.shrinkfit.co.uk

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