[dnullify]

Hi all!
today i got my new soldering iron, and i just now finished my first few repairs.
One case, i popped a broken driver on my v-moda bass freqs and re-soldered the little wire onto it's pad, then superglued it back together! and it works!

So now i'm moving on to the more challenging repairs. i've a couple pairs of headphones which have been unused because of cable issues. a pair of PX100s and AKG K27i, both of which have loose connections at the stress relief on the plug.

I think i need to re-terminate them, but i haven't the slightest how i'm going to go about doing that... my first thoughts were to chop away at the stress relief and re-solder the wire connections to the plug. then i realized, i don't really know what the connection of the wire to the plug looks like, and it's probably not do-able. plus, then there would be no strain relief at all, and i'd just repeat the issue over and over.

so how do i go about fixing crap connections to the plugs?

thanks!

 

[Uncle Erik]

You usually can't open up the plugs to resolder them, so cut the plug off and put a new one on the cable. You can get new plugs made by Neutrik, Furutech, and others. Check some of the recabling threads for other brands people use.

Once you cut the plug off, strip the wires and solder them to the new plug.

Make sure the headphone cable's wires aren't covered in enamel. Sometimes they are and you won't be able to make a clean solder joint. You can use steel wool, sandpaper, acetone, or chemical strippers to remove the enamel.

I like to use pait stripper formulated for removing enamel. That works best. Be sure to rinse the wire thoroughly in water after using a chemical stripper. You don't want to heat up remnants of it with your iron. Water won't hurt the cable, either. Just use your iron to heat the wire afterwards and the heat will quickly boil off any remaining water before you solder.

 

[sonnybobiche]

Of course you can do it. Just start cutting and see where you end up. It's not complex circuitry. Rip out the plugs and then solder them back in. If they're anything like what etymotics uses, they're essentially a hollow tube crimped around the wire. I fill the tube with solder, heat it with the iron and insert the cable into the liquid solder. When it cools, it's a pretty solid connection. As for strain relief, I find that either hot glue or heatshrink at the joint work pretty well.