splice fail

I've heard it referred to as "tinsel wire". Sennheiser is well-known for using it. This sort of wire is not trivial to solder successfully... something about the insulation on the individual (very fine) strands, I believe.

If I recall correctly, you have to either remove the insulation via a nasty chemical stripper, or tin the wires by dipping the strand into a solder pot at the proper temperature (with appropriate flux). Simply using a standard soldering iron and a coil of electronic solder often does not work... the insulation doesn't burn off properly and the solder never reaches the underlying metal.

Acetone.

Jamie

Nope. In my bad old days of phone phreaking, it was sometimes necessary to repair a telephone handset coil cord. Same stuff as the earphones... tinsel.

To make a decent connection, strip off the outer jacket CAREFULLY exposing the tinsel and some silk strands. Take a piece of stranded wire, strip off about 3 inches, cut one strand off, and wrap it around the tinsel. Start by winding a few turns on the remaining insulating jacket for strength, and then wind the wire around the tinsel and silk. You should then be able to solder to the wire.

On Sun, 18 Sep 2011 15:25:48 -0400, newb wrote (in article ):

My wife goes through a set of iPod earphones every month. You would think someone would develop a cord design that wouldn't fatigue. I have found that attempting to locate the break and repair it is usually a fool's errand.

Since it doesn't seem to be a function of how expensive the earphones are, my solution is to buy cheap ones in bulk from Woot or the equivalent and just throw them away when they break.

It depends. All of mine break at the point the wire enters the headphone. I now have 4 pair "in the queue" waiting for me to open them up, and cut the wire and resolder it.

My son is the exact opposite, he always breaks the wire where it connects to the plug. I sometimes put new plugs on them, but the last set was under warranty, and I told him to take them back.

Some people have patterns, some don't. :-)

Geoff.

Once you chop off the molded shell on the plug and clean it up it is fairly easy to solder to, easier IMO than the store bought tab/ shell deals. I then use Epoxy filler to shape a unique plug body (comes as a dough stick - cut off required amount, knead to mix, apply). Tubing for flex relief...

I found out the hard way that JB Weld, as good as it is, is conductive.

Jeff

Huh? The JB Weld FAQ claims it's not conductive (even though it contains iron filings).

Q: Will J-B Weld conduct electricity? A: No. J-B Weld is not considered to be a conductor. It is an insulator.

Perhaps they think it's not. I glued a thermal fuse back to the case of the crystal oven in a Cushman CE-3 after repairing the oven control. Quite impressive when I plugged it back in. (The fuse is connected to 120 vac)

I think their answer is in regard to people that want to use it as a liquid solder.

Jeff

The problem is that the JB Weld goo is mostly epoxy, not metal. There are wide insulating spaces between the metal filings. In order to be conductive, the metal filings would need to overlap, as happens with the flat sheet flakes of graphite in Aquadag (crt shielding) and aeromatic solvent based silver shielding coating.

My guess(tm) is that one lead of the CE-3 thermal fuse was connected to the metal case, or that one lead of the thermal fuse touched ground. I won't bore with my opinion of the CE-3 and Cushman.

I don't have any JB Weld handy, but I'll drop by the hardware store, buy some, make a few measurements, and send you the bill.

I meant Epoxy Putty from Ace hardware. Play dough consistency to start with, easy to shape, and it hasn't thrown a spark yet!

I just read the wiki and some other bits about tinsel wire. Yep, that sounds like the stuff I'm dealing with. And yep, non-trivial. I suppose I'll just buy a new pair of headphones and crank up some Jade Warrior. Thanks Dave!