Is it possible to cope with such a nuisance as a breakdown of headphones on your own? Broken wire, frayed core, broken plug - all this can be corrected with your own hands at home. You will need a soldering iron, consumables and some time.
Types of breakdowns
Headphones come in a variety of designs. However, the most common breakdowns for all types of headphones are similar. Most often, damage to one of the cores inside the cord occurs. This usually happens due to chafing or constant bending of the wire in one place. This is due to intensive exploitation.
The cord can also break at the plug. This occurs when there is strong bending stress on the cable at the base of the plug. The wire there may break if pulled sharply.
The wires break not only at the plug, but also in the headphone case. This can happen due to a strong jerk if the wire gets caught on something.
How to repair your headphones yourself
To repair a damaged wire, you will need a soldering iron, solder, flux and heat shrink tubing of a suitable diameter. All of these things can be bought at a very low cost in an amateur radio store.
First of all, you need to find the damage. This can be done literally by touch. Plug in your headphones, turn on the music, and begin carefully bending the wire from one end to the other.
The location of the damage will manifest itself as crackling, noise or missing sound. Once you've determined the location, cut out the damaged piece of wire. It is not worth saving, cut off with a margin of one or two centimeters in each direction.
Strip the outer insulation so that the strands protrude a few centimeters from the wire. Then remove the insulating layer from the cores, exposing the metal.
Typically, copper conductors are covered with a special varnish, which must be removed for convenience and to improve the quality of the soldering. For this, a flux is used. It is applied to the wire, after which the varnish is cleaned off with a soldering iron tip.
Apply heat shrink tubing to the wires before soldering the ends of the wires. After you solder the wires, slide the heat shrink onto the wire connections. Heat it gently with a soldering iron to make it shrink. This must be done for high-quality insulation of the wires. In this case, using electrical tape is ineffective and inconvenient. The outer insulation can be replaced with either heat shrink tubing or ordinary electrical tape.
If the wire breaks at the very base of the plug, you will have to cut it. The cut off plug must be opened by removing the plastic from it with a knife and nippers. When the plug is cleaned, you will need to solder wires to its pins in accordance with the color coding.
If you managed to open the plug case carefully, you can try to reassemble it in the reverse order. Epoxy glue can come to your aid.
If the case is permanently destroyed, you can use electrical tape or heat shrink. Another option is to simply buy an inexpensive collapsible plug and solder the wires to it.
When the wire at the speaker breaks, disassembly of the headphone housing is required. The housing can be fixed with screws or latches. It is necessary to open the case with latches carefully so as not to damage the fasteners.
Having disassembled the case, you need to find the place of the cliff. The wire should be stripped and soldered to the contact pad. The repair is completed by assembling the case in the reverse order.
Thus, self-repair of headphones is within the power of anyone who is not afraid to pick up a soldering iron.
