[aspras]

Hey everyone, about a week ago I noticed the microphone of my PC 360s had stopped working. The mic has a rotational mute feature where it mutes when rotated upwards, I'm pretty confident that's what stopped working. So I opened up the headset to expose the pcb and the wiring, here's what it looks like. 
What I want to know is if it would be possible to bypass the pcb and connect the microphone wires directly to the audio+mic jack ones. 

 

 

[duncan1]

Hello  Aspras -here,s what it look like? . But basically you are right most switches with exposed wires[can be "got at"] can be bypassed.Just loop the wires over to the mike direct.If this is on a pcb then thats easy.

 

[aspras]

Thanks for the reply, did you see the picture I linked to ? I'll put it in a spoiler just in case.
 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/9530/2p9c.jpg

I don't know which wires I have to connect the microphone's to in order to bypass the pcb.

 

 

[duncan1]

The first thing is to get a multimeter-borrow/buy you only need a cheap one as you are only testing continuity. The mike plug tip  check one multi meter lead to that and the other end run over the soldered connections until you get a S/C -then one lead to the sleeve and do the same again. You might find that a mike wire  on your picture  M-  screen is commoned [connected to common  earth  ] along with the other screen wires usually the thick PCB copper  strip. So that only leaves -M+ the "live" mike wire that would go through the switch so just run a jumper wire between M+ and the "live" wire from the plug you tested or you can just cut  the mike "live" wire from the plug and solder it direct to M+. I cannot see the copper run under that plug so thats the best way to do it. 

 

[aspras]

What if I cut the M+ wire and test each of the copper wires one by one while I'm monitoring mic activity from windows sound panel. Am I going to short circuit if M+ touches the wrong wire ?

 

[duncan1]

Yes you will as if the mike is a moving coil then there will only be the resistance of the coil when you tap across it and if it is a low resistance coil it might as well be a S/C. The result depends on the Audio card if its straight to your audio card input   . Some will be alright but I wouldnt chance it. Doing the same to an solid-state amp with no protection could blow it. Your thinking is right about only having to move the M+ wire  as the M- is probably connected to the earth circuit   already . Its a chance only you can decide and how lucky you think you are to get it right first time. 

 

[ViRGE]

For anyone else that finds this page like me when trying to repair a set of PC 360s, I have identified the two wires at the top of the cable connector.

The lower white cable is M+, the upper copper cable is M-/ground. The bottom 3 cables (which you can't easily see in this picture) are the three connections for speakers.

Note that the mic and speakers do not share a ground at this stage. The mic uses its own ground.

 

[big_k]

Doing this repair myself, after bypassing...still doesn't work. I think the mic itself is broken. Anyone know how to open the end and check?