cybervegan on Nostr: Oh the things I get myself into... And then wish I hadn't! A friend of my wife's ...
Oh the things I get myself into... And then wish I hadn't! A friend of my wife's asked if I could #repair her son's gaming headphones jack... Simple #soldering job I thought, so I agreed. I've soldered headphone jacks before, no problem. Yeah right. So this headset also has a mic, pretty standard you'd think. But if course, if it was, I wouldn't be posting this minor rant, would I?
The jack is 4 pole 3.5mm one, so I ordered one up on eBay. After it arrived, I set to work, hoping to glean the wiring scheme from the old one... But the old one was cast in black resin, so I couldn't see the connections, and the connections were too bad to measure with a meter. So I looked it up and found a forum post that has the details. Yay for the internet!
On the home straight, I thought, but I just could not get the wires to tin. The conductors are "varnished" like magnet wire, but also mixed in with what look like Kevlar fibres in a twist. I followed hints I found on the web, like burning the insulation off with a lighter, but it was just leaving to much residue; scraping with a razor didn't work; alcohol didn't work; lighter fluid didn't work either. I dug it my old tinning train pot; didn't help. Someone had suggested putting vaseline on the wire before lighting it - didn't work. Seems lots of people have these troubles from the comments. I'd wasted literally hours trying to sort what should be a 10 minute job, and was getting nowhere but Stressville.
In the end, I managed to do it. It takes about 5 minutes PER CONDUCTOR: separate out all the copper and plastic fibres, and crop off the plastic ones; Retwist the copper wires, then burn off the varnish with a lighter; then scrape lightly with a razor, before cleaning with a cotton bud dipped in IPA alcohol, by rubbing towards the tip of the wire repeatedly whilst turning; whack the iron up to max temp - 480C - and dab the wire plus solder bit in the tinning pot for a good minute, dragging the wire slowly past the bit; when it gets encrusted in flux deposits, scrape with razor and clean again with alcohol; repeat until the going of tin on the wire is seen; now change over to using solder wire - get a good sized blob of molten solder and bathe the wire in it, whilst dragging the bit towards the end of the wire repeatedly. There don't seem to be any shortcuts. Repeat for the remaining wires - x 5 fire this cable
I've vowed never to do headphones with this type of cable again.
The jack is 4 pole 3.5mm one, so I ordered one up on eBay. After it arrived, I set to work, hoping to glean the wiring scheme from the old one... But the old one was cast in black resin, so I couldn't see the connections, and the connections were too bad to measure with a meter. So I looked it up and found a forum post that has the details. Yay for the internet!
On the home straight, I thought, but I just could not get the wires to tin. The conductors are "varnished" like magnet wire, but also mixed in with what look like Kevlar fibres in a twist. I followed hints I found on the web, like burning the insulation off with a lighter, but it was just leaving to much residue; scraping with a razor didn't work; alcohol didn't work; lighter fluid didn't work either. I dug it my old tinning train pot; didn't help. Someone had suggested putting vaseline on the wire before lighting it - didn't work. Seems lots of people have these troubles from the comments. I'd wasted literally hours trying to sort what should be a 10 minute job, and was getting nowhere but Stressville.
In the end, I managed to do it. It takes about 5 minutes PER CONDUCTOR: separate out all the copper and plastic fibres, and crop off the plastic ones; Retwist the copper wires, then burn off the varnish with a lighter; then scrape lightly with a razor, before cleaning with a cotton bud dipped in IPA alcohol, by rubbing towards the tip of the wire repeatedly whilst turning; whack the iron up to max temp - 480C - and dab the wire plus solder bit in the tinning pot for a good minute, dragging the wire slowly past the bit; when it gets encrusted in flux deposits, scrape with razor and clean again with alcohol; repeat until the going of tin on the wire is seen; now change over to using solder wire - get a good sized blob of molten solder and bathe the wire in it, whilst dragging the bit towards the end of the wire repeatedly. There don't seem to be any shortcuts. Repeat for the remaining wires - x 5 fire this cable
I've vowed never to do headphones with this type of cable again.