Comments on: Soldering The Thinnest Wires Ever Conceived: Headphone Modding

By: tim zenner

tim zenner — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:41:38 +0000

Very nice article man, I found this after trying to repair my old headphones and finding out about this evil acrylic insulated things. A pencil torch like yours would have done the trick, what model do you use/recommend? I must have one

By: R Moribayashi

R Moribayashi — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:54:57 +0000

If you don’t want a bulge in the wire and you have a little patience you can order plugs on the internet for a few bucks. I always try to keep a few handy just in case. Search for 3.5mm (or 2.5mm for the smaller ones) and TRS if the plug has two plastic rings or TRRS if it has three. You will have to do some research to find the wiring for your headphones, especially for TRRS headsets or figure it out with a working pair and a meter. By the way, the initials come from the parts of the original 1/4 phone plug used in telephone switchboards over 100 years ago, the tip, the ring and the sleeve.

By: TempE

TempE — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:55:23 +0000

If $25 FMJ Skullcandy’s are the best bang for the buck you’ve ever heard then you’ll be frickin’ blown away by Meelectronics’ M9 and M6. Give ‘em a try, they’re amazing.

By: Harold

Harold — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:51:11 +0000

If you don’t have heat-shrink tubing, you can use hot glue (those pencil-size sticks of glue that stick into a warming gun)–it insulates well. If you do use it, go a little way up the outer insulation to make the whole splice stronger. It is stiff, but only maybe 1 or 1.5″ long.

I do this for something different: I shorten the cable on my mp3 player earphones for sports so that I reaches down to my waistband with a minimum amount of slack. I also put both the red and blue wires together to go to one earphone, since I like to have one ear free to hear traffic or the world around me. I listen mostly to podcasts, so sound quality isn’t paramount for me.

Great page of advice, thanks!

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:00:06 +0000

What size heat shrink did you use for this?

By: Johnny

Johnny — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:15:12 +0000

Fantastic tutorials. Save my day as I was struggling how to repair my Sony earphone and I did it following your advise. Thanks mate.

By: Sandeep

Sandeep — Sun, 30 May 2010 07:19:02 +0000

Hey there,

I googled quite a bit to come to this page, ok, similarities, I too am an EE and i too got a FMJ (or is it ink’d) and the kick of its bass is what’s keeping me going with this product. Unfortunately i too had a problem with its Jack and had it cut, tried different soldering techniques to get it fixed. But I am not able to get the old punch back. Here’s what I did:

Once I cut the wire, the white outer has the following inside
a. a covering of golden copper wire
b. a red copper wire with insulation and
c. a blue copper wire with insulation.

So first I bunched the golden copper wire into a bunch. and has the blue and red separated.

I bought a new Jack instead of using old Apple’s Jack (I still have them though), This new Jack I got has three pins a small contact (+), a big contact (-) and a much bigger ground.

On my first attempt i connected the blue to +, red to – and the golden copper to ground. Unfortunately, there was no sound at all, possible because of the insulation not sure. So started experimenting.

Second attempt, to the first blue and + connection i attached a lil bit of the golden copper from behind and so also to the red and – connection. There was sound but the solder did notmake a good contact, kept coming off.

Final attempt, connected the same contacts as above but, the golden copper connection was attached in such a way that there was no solder used and the main wire holding handle was used to grip the copper. It sounds good but not as good as the good ol’ days. Where am I going wrong. I have an ipod touch and simply cant buy a new FMJ cos I am now in India and they dont sell that here, I bought this when i was on a trip to the USA. please help

Was wondering what kind of connection made this thing work, is it designed that way, or was my trial and error actually getting lucky. Please help, I have spent my entire weekend on this. Much appreciated, thanks.

Anyways I am trying to heat off the nylon insulation on my red and blue wires today, let you know if the performance improved. Mail me on my e-mail address

Thanks,
sandeep

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 06 May 2010 04:11:03 +0000

thanks, fantastic advice. just burned the insulation and varnish off with a lighter.

By: Mondo

Mondo — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:46:53 +0000

Great tutorial man, it helped me a lot, thanks.

Now a thing about that mysterious red-green wire (though probably someone has mentioned that before me) – I was practicing with a pair of earphones from iPod mini and it was there, along with the green wire, inside the cable for the left earphone. No way there’s a mic in iPod mini’s earphones. So I guess it might be a variation of the copper wire in the right.

By: Ermita

Ermita — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:15:46 +0000

Thanks a lot buddy. You just saved me £15 of new cable for my Sennheiser HD 575. Really helpful tips and picture. Problem with mine was the 3.5mm jack not the cable so cut this off and manage to find an old not working mobile phone headphone. And uses the jack off this. Works a treat again. I’m not electronic guy that solder stuff but due to the very good explanation and picture manage to make my headphone works again.

Funnily enough did forget to put the heatshrink cover first and realize this after the first solder. But worst was after I done everything and tried the new cable. There was no sound WHAT! So I cut the cable again but only to realized that the other end is not connected to the headphone at all. DOH……lol….All good now. Thanks.