Dogs chewed through headphone wire

[fustercluck]

Alright alright...I'll just admit first off, it was ME who chewed through the headphone wire. I couldn't help my self...bad habit. Anyhow...I didn't chew them too much. They're pretty chewed up, but I didn't even break the outer black wire casing. A few small punctures here and there, but nothing big. Anyway I can fix em? These are just some $30 headphones from Target, but...they weren't actually mine - It'd be nice if I could somehow fix them instead of buying new ones, but I imagine I'm screwed.

 

[nullpointerus]

Do they still work fine?

Some black electrical tape will cover cosmetic damage.

If the headphones do not work, you will need: wire cutters, heatshrink tubing, and a spool of new speaker wire; but it won't likely look decent if you don't know what you are doing. You are probably better off buying a new pair of headphones.

EDIT: If you want to kick the habit, go into a pet store and buy some of the spray that people use to prevent puppies from teething on the furniture. Sounds crazy, but it's should be non-toxic and horrible-tasting.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Yeah, if it is actually causing them to not work then recabling them is going to cost you as much as buying a good replacement headphone (not really, but this way you have an excuse to get a good replacement, say some Koss KSC-75s) and you're going to have to deal with the hassle of recabling. See if wrapping it with electrical tape takes care of it.

 

[sdifox]

Just need to sand the insulating paints off the copper wires and solder them back together again.

 

[venkman]

Step 1) Don't eat your friend's stuff.
Step 2) Nothing else is as important as step 1.

 

[potato28]

Depends how bad it is. Is it completely served or is the shielding/ heatshink just unwrapped?

 

[chmike]

Dogs chewed through headphone wire - can it be fixed

Sure, see your vet, but I don't know if that will stop the chewing!

 

[fustercluck]

They headphones don't work, I can almost get them to make some noise by playing around with the wire, but it's really hard to do. The damage doesn't seem that bad, the outer layer is barely punctured anywhere. I'll probably try some electric tape and if that doesn't do it then I'll just replace them.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Adaman
They headphones don't work, I can almost get them to make some noise by playing around with the wire, but it's really hard to do. The damage doesn't seem that bad, the outer layer is barely punctured anywhere. I'll probably try some electric tape and if that doesn't do it then I'll just replace them.

You probably just chewed it up enough to mostly break the connection of the copper wire inside, which is why it works if you jiggle it.

It's nothing mechanical - wire is wire. Just open the cable up, sacrifice another cable, and add some new copper to the broken wire, solder it if possible. Then just tape it up.

Whether or not its worth it to fix it (depends on how nice they are) is a whole different question, but its not hard to fix.

 

[ericlp]

Electric tape isn't gonna help you in this case... You could cut the cord. And use a razor knife and strip off the insulation... Tho, usually the wires are sooo for headphones... I dunno, it would look pretty ugly. but you could just wire them together, IE twist them together wrap in electrical tape, and if you wanted you could get some of that shrink tubing you know, to make the finish touch! hahaha ugly as hell but would probably work ok...