jeff1965
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2012
- Posts
- 12
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Update, like anyone gives a crap! Anyway, it wasn't all that difficult to do, it just took a little patience. I went and bought some of those tiny little spring clips like I had seen someone use in a video. It was a waste of money in my opinion. They pop out from between the edges/groove/lip (whatever you want to call it) too easily. I can see why the guy in the video I watched used them, but I just found it to be unnecessary.
That pic is just to show you what little clips I am talking about that you probably don't need.
Okay, so to get the ear thingamabob open I just set it on the counter, then set a small aerosol can on top of the earpiece so it would have some weight on it while I used the hairdryer on it to heat it up. Worked fine. Took a little over a minute, maybe two to heat it up enough so that I could pull it apart with my hands. That little label up there on the pic there is just a little note I stuck on it so I could keep straight which wired were going to which earpiece. I don't know if it even matters, but I thought it might so I did that and know that the wired I spliced onto my new cord would go back to the "correct" side.
As far as the cable part of the project went, here is kind of what I did.
I cut the cable and reused the plug that came from the factory. I didn't buy a new plug. I just stripped the end where I cut it to expose the wires.
I found some fairly flexible wire I had lying around the house from some old speakers and spliced it onto the exposed wires with a little electrical tape.
I used some shrink wrap stuff that I got from an electrical supply shop - you can probably get more than you need for less than five dollars. It was cheaper at the electrical supply than it was at Radio Shack. The Radio Shack near my house only had tiny little sections of the shrink wrap stuff, at the electrical supply store I got a couple of three foot sections for less than $5.00.
Okay, so I used a little soldering iron and carefully applied heat to there the wires came into contact with the "contact spots", whatever THEY are called, and pulled the old wires loose. I was a little worried about getting that part too hot so I just heated a few seconds and pulled the iron away over and over until the old wire pulled free. I don't know if that was necessary, but something I read earlier made me think that it was possible to 'overheat' something inside that little metal thingamabob (driver?) and I didn't want to mess anything up so I did it that way. Anyway, they are fixed now, so apparently I didn't damage anything by doing it the way that I did.
THEN I used some tape to hold down my "new" cord still on the work table. I didn't want it wobbling around while I was trying to solder the "new" wires onto the drivers, OR WHATEVER THEY ARE CALLED. Well, that trick worked pretty well. The cable stayed pretty still while I did my soldering on those little contact places. I also used a little tape on the earpiece itself where the new cable was coming through that little groove/slot place in the earpiece that is just below the contact spot. (I hope that isn't too confusing 'cause I'm not gonna explain it better than that. If you have to do it, you'll know the place I'm talking about when you get to that point in the project.)
Okay, now I'm gonna go back in time a sec to BEFORE I did the final soldering. I put shrink wrap over the new cable from the plug up to where it splits for each earpiece. I put some shrink wrap over each set of wires that runs to each of the earpieces. Then I put another piece of shrink wrap over the "Y". It worked fine. It's not the prettiest cable in the world, but it works!
I didn't worry about any cosmetic stuff or other "modding". I like my Grado's fine they way they are. I kind of think that if I'm going to be a sommelier of headphones I'll just plop down the doe and get "the best" I can afford. These little Grado's are champs in my book!
That pic is just to show you what little clips I am talking about that you probably don't need.
Okay, so to get the ear thingamabob open I just set it on the counter, then set a small aerosol can on top of the earpiece so it would have some weight on it while I used the hairdryer on it to heat it up. Worked fine. Took a little over a minute, maybe two to heat it up enough so that I could pull it apart with my hands. That little label up there on the pic there is just a little note I stuck on it so I could keep straight which wired were going to which earpiece. I don't know if it even matters, but I thought it might so I did that and know that the wired I spliced onto my new cord would go back to the "correct" side.
As far as the cable part of the project went, here is kind of what I did.
I cut the cable and reused the plug that came from the factory. I didn't buy a new plug. I just stripped the end where I cut it to expose the wires.
I found some fairly flexible wire I had lying around the house from some old speakers and spliced it onto the exposed wires with a little electrical tape.
I used some shrink wrap stuff that I got from an electrical supply shop - you can probably get more than you need for less than five dollars. It was cheaper at the electrical supply than it was at Radio Shack. The Radio Shack near my house only had tiny little sections of the shrink wrap stuff, at the electrical supply store I got a couple of three foot sections for less than $5.00.
Okay, so I used a little soldering iron and carefully applied heat to there the wires came into contact with the "contact spots", whatever THEY are called, and pulled the old wires loose. I was a little worried about getting that part too hot so I just heated a few seconds and pulled the iron away over and over until the old wire pulled free. I don't know if that was necessary, but something I read earlier made me think that it was possible to 'overheat' something inside that little metal thingamabob (driver?) and I didn't want to mess anything up so I did it that way. Anyway, they are fixed now, so apparently I didn't damage anything by doing it the way that I did.
THEN I used some tape to hold down my "new" cord still on the work table. I didn't want it wobbling around while I was trying to solder the "new" wires onto the drivers, OR WHATEVER THEY ARE CALLED. Well, that trick worked pretty well. The cable stayed pretty still while I did my soldering on those little contact places. I also used a little tape on the earpiece itself where the new cable was coming through that little groove/slot place in the earpiece that is just below the contact spot. (I hope that isn't too confusing 'cause I'm not gonna explain it better than that. If you have to do it, you'll know the place I'm talking about when you get to that point in the project.)
Okay, now I'm gonna go back in time a sec to BEFORE I did the final soldering. I put shrink wrap over the new cable from the plug up to where it splits for each earpiece. I put some shrink wrap over each set of wires that runs to each of the earpieces. Then I put another piece of shrink wrap over the "Y". It worked fine. It's not the prettiest cable in the world, but it works!
I didn't worry about any cosmetic stuff or other "modding". I like my Grado's fine they way they are. I kind of think that if I'm going to be a sommelier of headphones I'll just plop down the doe and get "the best" I can afford. These little Grado's are champs in my book!
