How-to: Change your headphone's minijack! (now w/videos)

[renno61]

just fixed my brother koss porta pro, had to burn paint off small red and green wires(use lighter) solder on .worked a treat

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by renno61

just fixed my brother koss porta pro, had to burn paint off small red and green wires(use lighter) solder on .worked a treat

And no pics

[renno61]

sorry about that he wanted them back .

[FLMikey]

I'm trying to switch the plug on my Sennheiser PMX-100's and I have the radio shack plug part 274-0689. I was tinkering with it last night and I couldn't get the sound as good as before. I had a couple quick questions (apologies if any of this has been covered as I haven't had time to go through the whole thread yet):

1) When removing the red and green coating of the wires, what's the best method to do so in order to ensure lowest signal loss?

How I've been doing it so far is I use a lighter and burn it off. Typically hold it there for maybe 3 seconds or so for each red/green wire and then I'll blow on the wires to put out the flame. Let it cool for a few seconds and usually there's a little bit of brown so I'll use extremely fine sandpaper to try and get that off and use barely any pressure because I'm trying not to damage the wires.

2) Once I've removed the red/green coating, how much length of copper should I be wrapping between the plug and the screw? Would more length being wrapped around the screw mean a better connection?

3) I've read some people recommend to solder even though this is a solderless kit. Would soldering help improve connections and thus improve sound? Where would I even solder, over the screws?

4) Any other tips I should know to improve the quality of sound and longevity of the fix?

Any help would REALLY be appreciated. I love these headphones and I'd really hate to have to replace them

[WalkGood]

I normally melt the coating off with my soldering tip and don’t get the black you refer to. If the cable is large enough I do have a wire stripper that works well without damaging the wire. Soldering is the only way to get the best quality, I wouldn’t even consider screws as you stated. BTW silver solder is cheap and provides very good connection.

Edit: Make sure you provide a good stress relief and I also use shrink tubing on the jack and over the cable.

[Pinkys.Brain]

When recabling my CX300 I only used the soldering iron to heaten and scratch of the paint of the cables.

As for a good connection of the cable and the plug: The uncoated was about 0,75-1cm in length. I baiscally threaded the un-coated cable through the hole in the connector and then wrapped it around the metal flange. After I had done that for the ground and the two channels I tested the earphones before starting to solder. If you wrap the cables around the metal flange then there should be enough contact area for them to work.

Some people use hot-glue or epoxy as additional strain relief. But once you've done that it cannot be undone.

[FLMikey]

So the consensus is I'll need to solder. Well hopefully radioshack will let me exchange the plug I have for a new one. Then I'll just need track down my friend that has a soldering gun and I should be ready to give it another shot.

Thank you very much for the comments.

[renno61]

here some picture of the porta pro with new plug

By renno61 at 2011-10-14

By renno61 at 2011-10-14
i tried sandpaper did not work for me used lighter,when cool cleaned up with fingers ,then lightly thinned with solder.
my brother thinks they sound better
sorry about photo taken with phones camera

[FLMikey]

This is probably a silly question - but I'm looking at my wires and the red/green wires just look like they're painted. Is it necessary to use the soldering gun to try and melt the outer layer off? Reason I ask is another member mentioned to melt if off/burn it off with flux-core solder (http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/sho...6&postcount=41). Does that mean just to solder the wires on the plug without trying to melt it off first? BTW I've never soldered anything in my life yet, so I don't know if that's another stupid questions...I'm on a roll tonight haha.

EDIT: Oh yeah I'm thinking I won't try and return the plug I have because if I simply get rid of the screws that came with the plug I'll have the 3 openings to thread the right/left/ground wires through so I think that might work fine and save me the trip to exchange etc.

EDIT2: Here's the plug that I'll be taking the screws out of and will try directly soldering...think it'll work?

You Tube

You Tube

[Pinkys.Brain]

Just throw away the screws and you have the "normal" plug most people use.

[FLMikey]

OK cool that's what I was thinking. Thank you for the confirmation.

Just need to find out about removing the outer layer of the green/red wires. From what I can tell it's red/green metallic wire, which when I burned the paint off with a lighter shows a copper color wire matching the ground, and then if that copper wire is further stripped a bunch of tiny thread like fibers show. So when I use the solder gun tip am I just trying to melt the paint off to only show the copper or am I trying to melt the copper off to show the threads?

[WalkGood]

Just melt the paint off, clean the wire and then tin the wires before you solder the connections.

[Pinkys.Brain]

And take your time when scratching the paint off. Being hasty and using too much force easily results in breaking the tiny threads. Thoroughly heat the paint and then carefully scratch it off.

[mamamia88]

broke my plug when getting up off the couch and got tangled with my laptop. i ordered a cheap soldering iron on ebay. the cables i have in mine are 2 sets of 2 wires that appear a goldish color. can someone explain to a noob wtf i'm doing? edit cables now looks hair like any chance of salvaging?