HELP!! I cut my headphones in 2! Hard 2 fix, wired weird!

[CrewXp]

I have a problem. I was listening to music with my psp headphones in art and someone at our table accidently cut my headphones. Now it's in two. When wire's come apart, I always solder (engineer term for put back together with more conductive material) it back together. But this is weird. I was testing to see if I did it right before I soldered, so I twisted the colored wired together corresponding to their color. It was kind of like this:

-The Wire has 3 colors in it: Red, Brown, and Green. Red and Green assumingly the right and left audio and brown the ground. Well... The wires have something in the middle of it. A thread-like material. I think it's insulation. But it's inside each colored wire.


Well, I twisted the wires together with their colors and nothing came out. No audio. I don't know what to do. It should have worked. But I think I'm missing something. I really don't want to but another 30.00 pair of headphones. I've spent enough on this. Can anyone help me or give some tips? Thanks

[EdZ]

Post a pic of the wires. I'm not yet willing to cut up my own headphones (and certainly not my beloved e2Cs!) but a closer look might give us some clues. Have you used a multimeter to check whether the braided sheath or the core is conductive (test from the plug to the cut for continuity).

The core material sounds lust like a strengthening material (stop the braids form pulling too far).


Last thing; how close is the cut to the headphones themselves? Maybe when you sere soldering the wires heated the drivers and did some damage. It's an incredibly unlikely event, but if the cut was very close it could happen.

[Nick Fury]

I have a problem. I was listening to music with my psp headphones in art and someone at our table accidently cut my headphones. Now it's in two. When wire's come apart, I always solder (engineer term for put back together with more conductive material) it back together. But this is weird. I was testing to see if I did it right before I soldered, so I twisted the colored wired together corresponding to their color. It was kind of like this:

-The Wire has 3 colors in it: Red, Brown, and Green. Red and Green assumingly the right and left audio and brown the ground. Well... The wires have something in the middle of it. A thread-like material. I think it's insulation. But it's inside each colored wire.


Well, I twisted the wires together with their colors and nothing came out. No audio. I don't know what to do. It should have worked. But I think I'm missing something. I really don't want to but another 30.00 pair of headphones. I've spent enough on this. Can anyone help me or give some tips? Thanks

Thank you for the lesson in what soldering is. Anyway, I'm not going to make fun of you or your friend with the scissors.

Instead I'm going to help you. Headphones are a pain in the ass to stitch back together. Not only that but most non-cheapo headphones are made using many many smaller wires wound up into a thicker set.

This is great for sound quality and flexibility but it's not good for when you cut your headphone cord. It leaves really ugly split cables that can be a pain in the arse to put back into a single cord. If ANY of the wires are touching any wire other than one of their own color then no audio will come out. Yes, I know this is simple applied electronics but there is a good chance you missed one. A VERY good chance.

My suggestion, as someone who does a lot of soldering (That's an engineering term for put back together with more conductive material boys and girls... sorry, couldn't help myself) is to ditch the headphones and buy a new set.

As a side note, I despise the fact that sony made the left and right earbud cords different sizes. I ditched them in favor of my ipod earbuds which are of equal length.

[Lain_OTN]

Well the thread material is not isolation, the isolation is the coloured resine, yes the red green etc... are resine for isolation, you have to eliminate it scraping with a knife or something like that, and then solder it. remember to add something for isolation when finish.

[CrewXp]

err... yea,... thats what soldering is. I really don't see what's funny about it. A lot of people have no idea what it is. Anyways, yea I thought the wires couldn't touch, that'd defeat the purpose of having a left and right channel. But when you said the red, green, and brown ARE the insulation, wow. I have another question now. If the colored wires are the insulation, then what does the audio travel through? I don't think it could be the thread like material in the middle, but that's the only other thing. Thanks alot. I will try my best at it when I get home. I'm on my xbox right now.

[CrewXp]

Pictures here: http://www.crewxp.com/wires/

Sorry for quality. Used camera phone for quickness. Thanks

[Lain_OTN]

The isolation is the resine sorrounding the cables, when you eliminate the resine you will see normal cobre cables.

[CrewXp]

ok tomorrow im off from work and am going to give these headphones a go. When I look right now, I see the colored wires surrounding the thread... Isn't supposed to be opposite? You said the isolation is the resine surrounding the cables. But I see the cables on the outside. When I move the cables apart, the thread is in between the cable. 3 seperate colors surrounding 3 seperate threads. Does the audio come out of the cables surrounding the thread? or.... the..thread. I don't think thread is conductive. But the wires around the thread are touching. AUgh, confusing.

[Lain_OTN]

Forget the threads, the threads don't conduct anything. the coloured wires are conductive, for isolation they use a resine covering, you have to remove the resine cover and then solder the cables

[xxsksixx]

Soldering is a messy proposition with a meltable/flammable material wrapped inside the conductor.

Whenever I have to repair sony headphones, I use sandpaper to scrape off the resin and just twist the wires back together. From there, electrical tape like usual.

[CrewXp]

ok so the colored conductive cables can be touching? Does the resine surround all 3 colors or each color. When I open it up. Its the headphone covering (i think resine, its white), then inside are 3 colored conductive wires. Inside each wire is a thread. Thanks! I think I'm getting real close. Thx again

[greenlase]

just gonna clear this up a bit.

Each speaker needs two wires... so with 2 speakers, that's 4 wires. The left and right speakers will be seperated by the protective casing. Those cannot touch each other. Within each casing (green and red0 there should be two other colors. Those wires are protected by a special coating. those wires cannot touch each other either, but wires of the same speaker AND same color SHOULD touch. The protective coating on the inner wires is meant to keep the + and - lines seperate. If you're gonna reconnect them, you'll need to BURN off that chemical coating. Then make sure that the inner wires are seperated by color, and twist them together. Solder each line of both speakers on each side. you should have a total of 4 seperate wires, plus whatever the wires in the brown casing are. Use electrical tape to insolate the 4 speaker wires from each other.


Make sure you reconnect the brown wire too. It should be less sensitive. If there's a similar shiny coating, burn that off first too.

Wrap up the brown wire too, and then wrap all the wires together as a whole, making sure that they're completely insolated from one another.

Burning the chemical coating off can be tricky. You need to strip enough of the casing (white, green, red) to put the wires near a flame (1-2 in). They need to be in the flame long enough to burn off the coating, but not destroy the wire. Use the cool (low) part of the flame.

The thread has nothing to do with the current.. it's there to increase the quality of the cable as a whole. All sony headphones (that ive seen) have them.

I recommend running some audio through the headphone the entire time, except when you're actually soldering or burning. It's not good to mix electronics and heat.

If all goes well, it will work okay. They'll be easy to break though, and might not sound as good as they should...

aight?

[Nick Fury]

Each speaker needs two wires... so with 2 speakers, that's 4 wires.

That is just plain wrong (Depending on where the headphones were cut mind you but I don't think were cut above the "Y" junction. There are only three wires.

-Signal Left
-Signal Right
-Common Ground.

I'm not sure where you got there were four wires from but I can promise that the ground wire is common to both earbuds.

[inomine]

Oh just go and buy some new headphones, yours were unlikely to have been expensive enough for you to lose sleep over the couple of dollars they would cost to replace.

[Nick Fury]

I said that to begin with and I still think that's what should be done:

My suggestion, as someone who does a lot of soldering (That's an engineering term for put back together with more conductive material boys and girls... sorry, couldn't help myself) is to ditch the headphones and buy a new set.

[greenlase]

That depends on how the speakers are made. It depends where the Y is. Many headphones have the Y a the base of the plug, even though the Y of the cable is closer to the head phones. That way the Y of the cable can be seperated but the individual ground wires will still work fine, because they're actually splitting at the plug. For example.....

Code: Select all

[L]  [R]
||   ||
||   ||    signal and ground
||   ||
 \\  //    Appearant Y
 || ||
 || ||
 || ||
 || ||      signal and ground (2x)
 || ||
 || ||
 || ||
  |||
  |||_      True Y
  {___}===

If we're talking about the PSP headhones, it could be either way. I'm not gonna open mine up to find out though.