How To Repair Twisted Headphone Jack

Bogdan Petrovan / Android Authority

While testing the Razer Kraken X gaming headset, my cat pawed at my feet. To roughly interpret this behavior, information technology's a request to drib everything and play. I but needed five more minutes to complete testing and thought my domesticated roommate could await.

Wrong.

I turned away for a moment only to realize she chewed through the gaming headset's cable to attract my attention. Rather than delaying the review, my boss walked me through a basic cable repair how-to which I'm now able to share with you.

Why you should learn to repair cables

For one, this is an impressive, yet piece of cake skill to acquire. Anyone whose cables have torn, ripped, or frayed will do good from learning how to do this.

No affair how careful you lot are, accidents happen. If your headset doesn't accept a removable cable, you can repair it in less than xxx minutes with just a few tools. What'southward more than, this doesn't only apply to frayed cables — bent headphone jacks can too be remedied with the aforementioned method. If the headset's cablevision hasn't been chewed through past a pet, yous'll demand to lop off the bent jack of your headphones. And then, observe a spare pair of earbuds to cutting the working, united nations-aptitude headphone jack from. The end effect volition be a Frankensteined masterpiece. Regardless of why you want to learn how to repair your cables, it's a bones life-long skill that can financially benefit you and others.

What y'all'll need

The goal is function over form, so it won't look pretty… but it'll work. While you tin can run out and buy actual tools, we're going the DIY nuts road. If you want to dress the repair up, invest in heat-shrink tubing. This is merely necessary if you're going to travel with the headphones instead of using them at a desk. Otherwise, you can do as I did and wrap the exposed wires in electrical tape. At that place are just ii things y'all'll need to Macgyver your headset dorsum to its working state:

• An army pocketknife, either with a defended wire stripper or with a bottle opener opposite the blade
• A lighter
• Optional: oestrus-shrink tubing, which may also exist picked upwardly from your local Ace Hardware if you lot don't want to wait on two-solar day shipping

How to repair the cable

There are but a few steps from start to finish. The worst part is how tedious information technology feels. Before y'all start, clear the infinite of flammable objects. While it'due south unlikely annihilation dangerous will happen, allow's not tempt fate. The bathroom is a practiced controlled environs.

Step i: Strip the cable

Button down the canteen opener against the handle. So, push button the blade against the cable jacket.

Assuming the cable is completely separated, nosotros're going to strip the outer sheath abroad. If you've never done this earlier, as I hadn't, practice on the longer piece. If y'all mess upwardly, you lot can always chop off the mistake and try again.

Insert the ~2 inches of the cablevision into the wire stripper or notch of your knife. If it's an bodily wire stripper, this slice may lock into place at a 90-degree angle. If it's a bottle opener, lower the piece while keeping the cable in place. Continue lowering it until information technology's wedged between the knife handle and canteen opener. Now, sink the pocketknife until it's just cutting through the sheath.

From here, concord the longer side of the cable steady as you rotate the knife in a complete circle. Information technology helps to add a chip of force per unit area on the handle every bit you rotate. Make certain yous're non pushing as well hard and damaging the internal wiring. If damage does occur, well, that'south why we started on the longer piece of cable.

Be sure to practice on the longer slice of separated cable in case of any mistakes.

Once you've rotated the bract around the jacket, pull the pocketknife and excess cable in reverse directions. This volition slide the sheath off, revealing three or four wires. In the instance of the Razer Kraken X, there are four colour-coded wires: ruby-red, blue, green, and copper. Set this section of the original cable aside and repeat this for the other part of damaged cable.

If you're working with a apartment or ribbon cable, an X-Acto pocketknife is more than effective than an regular army knife. This is a more fragile procedure. Brand a 2-inch lateral incision running downwardly the cable. You can then elevator the flaps to reveal the wires. From there, pluck each one out individually either by hand or with tweezers.

Step two: Remove the wire coating

After stripping each stop of the separated cablevision, the pieces should look similar this. Then, individually burn the colored blanket from each wire.

Once you lot've pulled each wire from the jacket, you'll take to get rid of the outer coating. You'll need to proceed some of the coloring at the base of each wire to identify which is which. This way, you lot're non guessing and checking when you attach red to red, greenish to green, and then on.

Burn each wire one at a time. Information technology only takes one or two seconds for the exposed wire to reveal itself beneath the melted coating. If the flame begins traveling down the wire, just blow information technology out. Push button each completed wire off to the side as yous move onto the adjacent. In one case all the coatings have been burned, make clean the ash off. I did this with my finger nail, but a paper towel volition practice simply likewise.

Simply as with step i, set this piece of the original cable aside and echo with the other piece.

Step 3: Rejoin the wires

Nosotros're in the dwelling stretch. Now, you lot have to reattach each wire. If you went the extra mile and picked upwards some heat compress tubing, slide it onto each cable piece abroad from the exposed wires. We'll use this subsequently.

Heat shrink tubing will improve protect the wiring and is less of an eyesore than electrical record.

Remember when I mentioned you lot should exit a bit of coloring on each wire? Hither's why. Yous need to wrap the respective wires together. This is the most irksome step. It must exist done gently so as not to fray the strands. At the same time, the wrapping should be tight, preventing the wires from coming apart.

While it doesn't matter what social club you lot get in, working in and moving out will save you a minor headache. In a short-sighted rush, I did the opposite, which made attaching the inner wires a pain.

If y'all're not using estrus shrinking tube:

Individually wrap each repaired wire with a thin piece of pre-cut electrical record. Doing so will insulate and protect the wires. From there, wrap all 3 tape-covered wires in a single slice of electrical tape. Viola. That should agree up for abode employ.

If you are using rut shrinking tube:

You just need to wrap two of the wires in a thin, pre-cutting piece of electrical tape. Then, slide the heat shrinking tubes dorsum down over the covered wires. Hold a lighter below the tube; exist careful to avert touching the flame to the tubing. This volition cause the tubing to contract and tighten around the wiring. Congrats, you lot're ready to go back to listening.

Why cocky-repair matters on an individual and global scale

If your cable failed due to a pet's impatience, chances are high that it'll happen once more. In that case, you could relieve yourself a lot of coin by learning how to repair cables on your own.

Beingness a DIY-er is about more than than having an overpopulated Pinterest lath. Information technology promotes consumer efficacy and benefits the environs. As we know from smartphones and laptops, our beloved gadgets are often fabricated with an expiration engagement. The hot-button term for this is planned obsolescence. This extends beyond handsets, though, as the cables are ofttimes the first component to fail on headphones and earbuds.

Cocky-repair is a great skill for anyone opposed to shelling out lump sums of cash every time headphone cables pause. Not only does it give you a ameliorate understanding of how the technology works, it also saves money.

Landfills aren't the only place our trash ends up.

Additionally, manufacturing headphones doesn't come inexpensive. Information technology takes a major cost on the environment and ecosystems to produce them. When they break, many of usa, myself included, habitually toss them into the trash. Waste direction and then transports this from the ends of our driveways to landfills. Oftentimes, this waste matter is outsourced to an underdeveloped country only to seep corrosive, toxic byproducts into the earth and h2o.

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Past exporting our refuse to countries too poor to refuse it, our trash immediately affects the proximate population's health. This outsourcing is just a way of brushing the problem under the rug. If rubbish isn't sitting in standing bodies of water, so it's burned. This releases dioxins which, according to the World Health Arrangement (WHO), are highly toxic and may cause developmental issues, cancer, and harm to the immune organization when a human is overexposed to them.

Information technology also has a socioeconomic impact on the region. Countries have to figure a mode to handle the imported waste material. Still, in some cases, this dumping is done illegally. Afterward a fatigued out dispute, the Phillipines returned 1.5 tonnes of unsanctioned trash, which was falsely categorized every bit recyclable plastic in 2013 and 2014, to Canada.

Sure, you're non going to change the world with a single cablevision repair, but macro change begins on the micro level. Repairing your own cables means you lot're non left as a stranded and helpless consumer when something breaks. If we all perform at-dwelling house cable repairs, nosotros can expand our knowledge to more expensive, environmentally damaging products similar smartphone repair. Ultimately, though, the firsthand impact is it saves you a quick buck and relinquishes the need to deal with an automated customer service agent: the real bane of product failure.

Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/how-to-repair-headphone-cable-1003960/

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