Hi all -

I'm completely new to all circuit-related stuff, but I'm trying to do a project with my daughter in which you disassemble headphones and then stitch them into a hoodie with conductive thread.

We disassembled the headphones and soldered the ends of the headphone jack side and the speaker side, and I checked with a volt-meter-thing to make sure that signal goes from the headphone jack to the headphone speakers (if you put them together directly as in the picture or with conductive thread), but no matter what I try when I plug in the headphone jack to an ipad and play music it doesn't make any sound. We even bought a new pair of headphones and tried doing the same but still no luck. Any ideas on what to try next greatly appreciated! Again, I'm totally new to everything involved here so it may be something very obvious that I'm missing...

Thanks,
-Nik

 

First, although it is difficult to discern, it looks as if you’ve shorted the signal lines to the speakers.

From the jack, the cable should have 3 or 4 wires which split into two wires for each speaker. Let’s talk about one speaker, as the same requirements exist for the other speaker.

Each speaker requires two wires. Wherever you splice into them, they must be insulated from each other.

Also, for best results, the speakers are polarized, so the order in which the wires are spliced is important. There is usually one bare wire and one insulated wire. The bare wire should go to the same speaker terminals on both speakers.