Hi,
they stole my $70 in-ear headphones in the bus today
, and I can't live without headpones, really.
I've ordered the same model again, and it's gonna take like 1 or 2 weeks to arrive where I live.
So meanwhile, I needed a temporary solution. I had a pair of cheap headphones in my storage drawer, but one of them was not working (left one). So I opened the "case" of both, disassembled them and cut the same portion of cable in both sides. Then I stripped both cables and there were 2 cables in each side: green and orange. I know they are treated externally, coated with some non-conductor paint or stuff, so if they touch each other, they don't create a short circuit. So I've heated the end I was gonna solder, I've tried to tin it, but nothing. I've rubbed it slight with the solder (little force), and nothing. It won't simple get tinned. So, as this is a temporal solution, I've ended up soldering the two wires of each headphone in a "cold solder" way. I put enough solder first on the IC, and the I heated it up with the soldering iron, melting it, then introducing the cable in the middle of the "volcano", fully covered, but of course it was not joining completely, cause the solder didn't stuck to the wire. So it is like a cable in the middle of a bubble, that is locked there, but there's no joint. Anyways, the joint seemed pretty solid and the headphones started to work perfectly fine.
What was I doing wrong and how do I remove whatever the audio cables have in order to tin the cable and create a good joint.
PD: buying a soldering iron and finally giving a try to electronic repair (amateur, of course), is one of the best things I've done in my life. In just two months, I've fixed a lot of "easy" devices that didn't work, including a $20 mouse and now a $15 headphones. I love my soldering iron!
they stole my $70 in-ear headphones in the bus today
, and I can't live without headpones, really. I've ordered the same model again, and it's gonna take like 1 or 2 weeks to arrive where I live.
So meanwhile, I needed a temporary solution. I had a pair of cheap headphones in my storage drawer, but one of them was not working (left one). So I opened the "case" of both, disassembled them and cut the same portion of cable in both sides. Then I stripped both cables and there were 2 cables in each side: green and orange. I know they are treated externally, coated with some non-conductor paint or stuff, so if they touch each other, they don't create a short circuit. So I've heated the end I was gonna solder, I've tried to tin it, but nothing. I've rubbed it slight with the solder (little force), and nothing. It won't simple get tinned. So, as this is a temporal solution, I've ended up soldering the two wires of each headphone in a "cold solder" way. I put enough solder first on the IC, and the I heated it up with the soldering iron, melting it, then introducing the cable in the middle of the "volcano", fully covered, but of course it was not joining completely, cause the solder didn't stuck to the wire. So it is like a cable in the middle of a bubble, that is locked there, but there's no joint. Anyways, the joint seemed pretty solid and the headphones started to work perfectly fine.
What was I doing wrong and how do I remove whatever the audio cables have in order to tin the cable and create a good joint.
PD: buying a soldering iron and finally giving a try to electronic repair (amateur, of course), is one of the best things I've done in my life. In just two months, I've fixed a lot of "easy" devices that didn't work, including a $20 mouse and now a $15 headphones
. I love my soldering iron!
