Hi,
I was wondering whether it is possible to salvage a microphone from an old broken headphones/mic set that was originally used for SKYPE and now is lying in the bottom of a cardboard box in my attic.

So I have some basic questions about microphones :
1. Does a microphone have 2 or 3 wires to it ? (vcc, ground, signal ?)
2. Will it work if I solder these wires from the old mic/headphones set to an 3.5mm audio jack and connect it to the PC ?
3. Or it does need some circuitry to be put between my mouth and the PC ?

Thanks

Doronb

 

Open it up and look. Some are "unpowered" 2 wire and some have a preamp with 3 wires. As to connecting it to an audio jack. Mono for the 2 wire, stereo plug for the 3 wire but check if the connections are correct at the receiver.

Typical Electret Microphone Cartridge, 2 pin, http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets2/50/50098_1.pdf

 

https://www.hobby-hour.com/electronics/computer_microphone.php

 

in the end mt parents just bought new mic/phones set and i found the way for it to work with their linux pc.
so for now, i am less in a need for that.
thanks.
but i think that i figured out that for pc the pin has to be 4 rings style - base,mic,right,left. and all the pins that i had tried to solder to the mic were just 3 rings style. and thats why i couldn't even test it.