How do I determine which is the left and right terminals on an 3.5mm jack?
Jun 2, 2011 at 3:23 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 9

neato

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This is my first DIY project so forgive me if this is elementary. I just bought a 3.5mm jack to give my M50s a detachable cable, but I don't know which is the left or right terminal. There is a silver terminal and a gold terminal. The silver one is labeled "1" and the gold is labeled "2." Any idea on which one is left and which is right?
 
Jun 2, 2011 at 4:14 PM Post #4 of 9


Quote:
It's a Philmore 504K. I don't know what a continuity tester, and I don't know what a DMM is.



Normally it is left, right ground in the sense of the clock starting at nine o'clock. But to get sure, you will have to measure it with a digital multimeter (DMM)..
 
Jun 3, 2011 at 7:59 AM Post #6 of 9
plug a mini-to-mini cable into the female jack, touch one of the DMM's probe to one of the terminals on the free end of the mini-to-mini cable, and touch the other to the female jack's each solder lugs. when you have connectivity (usually a beep if the DMM has that function, the display will also usually show 0 Ohms or very close to it), you know which lug corresponds to which terminal.
 
Jun 13, 2011 at 5:01 AM Post #8 of 9
Aren't the Tip Ring Sleeves fixed in terms of signal or ground? As long as you know that, you should be able to trace back which is left right ground since the contacts in the plug need to be at the matching postions. Google should be able to get you that info. Search is not too handy for me at the moment.
 
Jun 14, 2011 at 1:16 AM Post #9 of 9
Mister X was right. Thanks for the help everyone! Something went wrong when I soldered the wires to the terminals though. The connection was bad.
 

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