[Moved]: Repair jack headphones with microphone

[czmiel24]

Hi,
I have a problem, with dead headphones. I cuted the wire, but i really don't how to connect those with new jack. Can you help me? This is the list of wires from left to right:
red-cooper, red, white, cooper, green-cooper, green.

 

[Audioguru]

Re: Repair jack headphones with microphone

You show a plug, not a jack.
You could simply plug in the plug and randomly connect the wires to the different contacts. You will find left ear, right ear and microphone.

 

[BradtheRad]

Re: Repair jack headphones with microphone

To make an educated guess...

Left ch.: green wires

Right ch.: red wires

Mic: white, copper

To make sure, apply an audio signal to the wires. Don't attach a 1.5V battery. You don't know if the transducers can endure it.

Do you want to use the mic? Then your job is more difficult. You must test to make sure you have the correct wires. It may be (a) a dynamic mic, or (b) a condenser mic. A condenser mic might have voltage somewhere in the circuit.

- - - Updated - - -

Your plug has 4 contacts. It appears longer than a normal stereo headphone plug.

Therefore I think the tip is for mic.
Then L chan, R chan.
The body is ground.

 

[Audioguru]

Re: Repair jack headphones with microphone

I do not think the tip is for the mic then ordinary heaphones without a mic will not play one channel when plugged into the jack.
Therefore I think (I don't have headphones with a mic) the "extra" ring beside the body of the plug is for the mic.

EDIT: Here is a photo on the internet:

 

[BradtheRad]

Re: Repair jack headphones with microphone

I do not think the tip is for the mic then ordinary heaphones without a mic will not play one channel when plugged into the jack.
Therefore I think (I don't have headphones with a mic) the "extra" ring beside the body of the plug is for the mic.

Yes, I was off base. I was recalling the older Macintosh Plaintalk plug.

From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)

"The Apple PlainTalk microphone jack used on some older Macintosh systems is designed to accept an extended 3.5 mm three-conductor phone connector; in this case, the tip carries power for a preamplifier inside the microphone. If a PlainTalk-compatible microphone is not available, the jack can accept a line-level sound input, though it cannot accept a standard microphone without a preamp."

These days it's hard to keep up with what's proprietary and what's standard.

 

[czmiel24]

Re: Repair jack headphones with microphone

Thanks for reply Ok, i will do that, but should i split green-cooper wire to green and cooper, and connect green with green from headphones, and the same with cooper wire?

 

[Audioguru]

Re: Repair jack headphones with microphone

Do you have the original plug that has short pieces of the original wires on it?
Do you have a new plug that you want to connect the long wires? I guess you are replacing the plug because the wires are frayed near it and it is difficult to remove the short wires from it, or the original plug became damaged by your dog trying to eat it.
Then connect the wires the same. The insulation on the ends of the wires will need to be removed with a wire-stripper.
Do you know how to solder?

 

[czmiel24]

Re: Repair jack headphones with microphone

I had original jack, but the wires are flooded, so i can't to know how they are connected. I was repairing before few plugs, but no one had microphone. I don't know whether green-cooper wire should be splitted to 2 wires? I am trying on to solder: green and green from "green-cooper" to tip, red and red from"red-cooper" to Ring 1, white to Ring 2 and cooper, cooper from "green-cooper", cooper from "red-cooper" to Sleeve. What do you think?

 

[Audioguru]

Who is Cooper? It is somebody's name. We are talking about copper wire.

I think you have a wire with green insulation and a bare copper shield wire with green paint marks, a wire with red insulation and a bare copper shield wire with red paint marks and a wire with white insulation and a bare copper shield wire with no paint.

 

[czmiel24]

Oh, ok, propably you have right. So should I solder green and bare copper shield wire with green paint marks to Tip, red and bare copper shield wire with red paint marks to Ring1, wire with white insulation to Ring2, and bare copper shield to Sleeve?

 

[Audioguru]

Green connects to the tip. I think red connects to ring 1. Probably the bare copper wire, bare copper shield wire with green paint marks and bare copper shield wire with red paint marks are the commons and should all be connected together to the sleeve. The white connects to ring 2. I guess.

If you connect the green to the green copper wire and the red to the red copper wire then I think you are shorting both earphones then they will not work.

 

[czmiel24]

I have connect as you said but it doesn't work properly: right headphone sounds good but very silently, left little louder but the quality is awful, microphone doesn't work. But while listening to music,on the pilot center button is pressed, left headphone sounds great, just normal but right doesn't work at all. Any ideas?

 

[BradtheRad]

At this point I would take a magnifying glass, and look at the cables going to the plug. (I assume you still have the old plug?)

Look closely at the color of insulation around the strands.

Poke a needle into the copper strands. Attach your ohmmeter leads to the plug rings. Do many tests, back and forth, to find which ring is connected internally to which wire.

Draw a diagram. Write down the results. Then you'll have a schematic to compare with.

This should have been my recommendation at the beginning. Headphone cables are so trouble-prone that it's routine for me to repair mine. However I have not worked on a combined plug with built-in mic. I did not realize how complicated the wiring gets when you have the added microphone.