Quick and easy repair of broken headphones at home: instructions and tips. How to repair broken or broken headphones

21.10.2019

It is known that the breakage of the plug at the end of the wire is the most common malfunction of headphones.

Due to frequent kinks, strong jerks and other mechanical loads, thin wires break or tear. In this case, as a rule, one ear stops working or, as in my case, both at once.

Sometimes the common wire breaks, in which case the sound is distorted beyond recognition: high and mid frequencies almost completely disappear. This happens because the right and left amplifiers of the phone/player are turned on in antiphase and their output signals almost completely cancel each other out.

It also happens that the stereo effect simply disappears.

Often there is no sound in the ears, but the microphone works as if nothing had happened. However, if the microphone wire breaks, the control buttons on the headset cord stop working along with the microphone.

Most often, the cause of any described malfunction is a broken wire in the immediate vicinity of the plug.

Sometimes damage to the wire is visible to the naked eye, but most often it is hidden under the insulation.

How to fix headphones at home if the wire comes off the plug

Now I will tell you how to fix vacuum earbud headphones with your own hands if the wire has come off the plug.

I will show the repair process using the example of the Monster Beats by dr Dre headphones, which I received along with the HTC Sensation XE phone. They served faithfully for almost 4 years until the plug finally broke.

The plug in these headphones is a regular mini-jack (3.5 mm) with four contacts - right ear, left ear, microphone and general. By the way, what’s interesting is that this headset has buttons so that you can rewind songs forward and backward, but there are no special contacts on the connector for them. All the buttons somehow miraculously use the same microphone contact.

In short, now I’ll try to repair these headphones at home, and if something goes wrong, screw it! - I'll go buy new ones. Moreover, the choice today is simply huge. And especially since I’m far from an audiophile and any kind will suit me, as long as they’re comfortable.

Initially, the headphones looked like this:

Headphones with a microphone and control buttons, so the plug has 4 contacts and 5 wires inside. The headset connector is, of course, non-separable.

As I already said, this method Repair is only suitable if the problem is in the connector - one earphone, right or left ear, microphone does not work, buttons are not pressed, the sound disappears if you move the wire at the plug, etc. etc.

So, if you are firmly convinced that the headphone plug really needs to be replaced, move on.

How to fix headphones if one ear (or both) is not working

In order for us to get the highest quality and super-creative plug that no one else has, we will need:

Two .38 caliber shells. Suitable for Makarov pistol or similar. For example, I took brass sleeves for trauma (AKBS 9mm P.A.)
Drill with drill bits (3, 3.5, 7 and 9.5mm)
Hacksaw for metal
Epoxy glue
Syringe for 5 cubes
Small vise
Sandpaper
Soldering iron with a sharp tip (solder, flux and an aspirin tablet are welcome)
A small board, approximately 30x30 mm and about 20 mm thick

We will make an L-shaped plug, because... it is better than straight (more reliable and more compact). So, let's go.

Step 1

To begin with, we’ll make some small equipment to make it easier to work with the sleeves, so that you can safely clamp them in a vice without denting or scratching them. We take our piece of wood and drill a hole in it with a 9.5 mm drill, then make a cut with a hacksaw.

You should get something like this:

Step 2

Now we can process our sleeves without fear of spoiling their chic appearance:

Step 3

Since I had spent cartridges, there were dents on the primers from the firing pin. But we need everything to be beautiful, so we knock out both capsules using an awl, a hammer and straight hands:

Then we straighten one of them with light blows from the inside using something suitable (I took the shank from a broken drill of a suitable diameter).

To make it even more beautiful, you can sand it a little more with sandpaper:

Then we press the beautiful and even capsule into its original place:

If your cartridges are brand new, unfired, then knock out only the primer from one of them (you can throw it away immediately, it won’t be needed). We do not touch the second sleeve for now.

Step 4

Then we clamp the sleeve without primer in a vice and drill out the bottom from the inside with a 7 mm drill. You need to drill so as to make the bottom of the sleeve as thin as possible. Those. the drill should come almost close to the hole from under the capsule (I left about 0.5 mm of margin).

Then carefully cut off the bottom to make a puck like this:

Step 5

Now we take our sleeve with a primer and shorten it to 13 mm:

We carefully process the edges with sandpaper to obtain an even cut that is strictly perpendicular to the axis of the sleeve.

As a result, the two halves should fit perfectly into each other:

Step 6

Now is the time to deal with the old plug and wires.

To begin with, very carefully, using a sharp knife, unscrew the old connector to remove all excess and leave only the plug itself with four contacts and soldered wires:

We remember, or better yet write down, where which wire was soldered. My HTC headphones (with microphone) had the following pinout:

Step 7

We unsolder the old wires from the connector, strip the cable, tin the ends and shrink a piece of heat shrink (diameter 2.5 mm, length 21 mm).

To service wires in varnish insulation, it would be nice to take an aspirin tablet, but I didn’t have one, so I made do with regular rosin. If you work with aspirin, then know that the vapors of this nasty thing are terribly poisonous. You have been warned.

Step 8

Drill a hole of suitable diameter in the wall of the sleeve. In my case, a 3 mm hole turned out to be ideal:

Step 9

We thread the cable through the hole and solder the headphone and microphone wires (in strict accordance with the pinout!):

Step 10

Well last stage: Using a syringe, measure out 0.5 ml of hardener and 5 ml of epoxy resin. Mix the ingredients together thoroughly.

Then, to expel all air bubbles, heat the mixture in a water bath to 80 degrees.

We fill our sleeve with the resulting composition to the brim, put everything in its place and, with the help of ingenuity and improvised devices, fix it all for at least 12 hours (or better yet for a day):

Last step

When everything hardens, we take the structure out into the light of day and receive aesthetic pleasure from the work done.

What could be more enjoyable than fixing your broken phone headphones yourself?

Eh, if I also had headphones in the form of cartridges, it would be a fairy tale :)

If this is too difficult for you and you would like something simpler and faster, then we present to your attention the restoration of a headphone plug using an old ballpoint pen and epoxy resin.

Well, now you know exactly what to do if the headphones in the jack break. And if your arms and legs grow from different places, then everything will work out much better than mine!

Have your headphones stopped playing? Before you repair your headphones, you need to understand the cause of the problem. And in general, maybe the headphones are not to blame.

What malfunctions can there be:

the wire at the plug is broken
speaker wire broke
The speaker coil has burned out or broken
Volume control is broken
the screens are dirty
no contact in the connector

Most often, the breakdown depends on what price category the headphones belong to: with cheap ones, anything can happen, from a broken wire to a malfunction of the speaker coil. In the middle price group, copper cable wires are most often broken.

It is usually immediately clear what the cause of the breakdown is. If, for example, when bending a wire, the sound either disappears or appears, then most likely it is a break copper wire. And by bending the wire, you can find the place where the conductor breaks. If the sound disappears when you change the position of the volume control, then the reason is poor contact in this control. If the sound in the headphones disappears immediately, without a loss-recovery period, then you need to measure the resistance of the headphones.
The contact numbers are marked in the figure:
1 - left channel,
2 - right channel,
3 - common wire.
You can measure resistance with almost any multimeter. To measure the resistance of the left channel, you need to connect the multimeter probes to the 1st and 3rd contacts, and the right - to the 2nd and 3rd.

The resistance of the channels must be the same, and is usually equal to several tens of ohms. Resistance in units of ohms most often means a short circuit, in a coil or in a wire. A large resistance of kilo-ohms or even infinite means a break in the wire or coil of the speaker. If the headphone impedance is fine, but there is no sound, then the connector is most likely to blame.
I repaired headphones with all kinds of faults; while I was buying cheap headphones, the wires often broke and I had to cut the wire at the break point and then solder it.
If the volume control malfunctioned, I shorted the input and output, such headphones lost the ability to adjust the sound, but continued to work as usual.

How to repair headphones if the wire is broken?

You need to cut the wire as close as possible to the place of the supposed break and carefully try to pull out the strands of the conductors that have broken off, then you can assess the location of the real break. Cut and strip the cable so that 1.5-2 cm long conductors peek out from under the insulation. If you plan to use the same connector, then you need to process the cable from both the connector side and the headphone side. Each of the conductors needs to be stripped and tinned to a length of 3-5mm. We put a piece of heat-shrinkable tube 3-4 cm long on the entire cable, the diameter should be three times larger than the diameter of the cable. On each of the three conductors we put a heat-shrinkable tube 1 cm long with a diameter of a couple of millimeters. And we solder each pair of conductors. Then we move the heat shrink tubes to the soldering points. Now you can make sure that everything is done correctly; to do this, use a multimeter to connect to the plug contacts and check the resistance of the coils; you can also connect the headphones to the player and listen to see if everything is fine and if you haven’t messed up anything. If everything is good, then using a lighter we shrink the heat-shrink tubes at the soldering points, then we slide the heat-shrink tube that we previously put on the cable and heat-shrink it too.
If the wire frays too close to the plug, you will have to find a new plug, or use the original plug, but remove the insulation from it. To connect the plug correctly, you need to determine what color wire is responsible for each channel and for the common contact. To do this, take a part of the cable with a connector, a multimeter and determine what color wire fits each of the connectors on the contact. Now we know which wire should be connected to each contact on the connector.
I note that buy a good plug big problem. Conventional dismountable plugs are large and have poor contact. I found that even with the new detachable plug, the left channel contact simply wobbles from side to side, so the spring contacts of the socket cannot provide good contact with it. Therefore, it makes sense to reuse the base of a non-dismountable plug.

I want to tell a story about headphones Sennheiser cx-300, very good in-ear headphones.
I bought them because of their good sound insulation, so that I could comfortably listen to audiobooks and music on a rumbling subway train. In my opinion, I paid it not very cheaply: about 1200 rubles, before that I also had not cheap Koss earbuds (400-500 rubles), but in the Koss coil, after half a year of operation, the wire broke and I had to choose new good-quality headphones.

And after a year of operation, the sound began to disappear and, out of habit, I did not try to figure out what was causing the breakdown, but immediately cut off the plug. And woe is it, it turned out that the wires were not broken. Usually, if the wires are broken, you can pull out the rest of the copper wire and calculate where the break is in order to strip the wire back to it. IN in this case, there was no break.
I soldered a new plug, and of course the problem remained. I bought another, inexpensive headphones, they also didn’t work. Then I decided to disassemble my Acer n311 handheld. And it turned out that the problem was there: the connector contacts fell off the board, and therefore the contact was lost... I thoroughly cleaned the communicator board and soldered the connector - the socket began to work as it should.
The next problem happened with these headphones about two years later: the volume of the right channel dropped. I thought that there was a short circuit in the coil, I even wanted to open the earphone, but I came to my senses in time and measured the resistance on both channels to check, they were the same - about 16 Ohms. Then I decided to look on the Internet for the reason for the volume reduction. It turned out that earplugs often become clogged with wax from the ears.
And to restore the volume of in-ear headphones, you need to clean the mesh through which sound penetrates from the speaker to the ear.

How to clean the mesh on in-ear headphones:

1) Remove the embroidery pads,
2) Pour some alcohol into a small shallow container, such as a cork,
3) Carefully, just a couple of millimeters, lower the earphone with the mesh down into the alcohol for one minute,
4) After this, repeat the procedure with hydrogen peroxide for 5 minutes.
Moreover, point 4 is required only in particularly advanced cases. Since I didn’t have hydrogen peroxide and had to go to the pharmacy for it, I limited myself to the first three points and the headphones started playing with the same force.

Internal break in the cord

Manifestations: the sound begins to rustle in one of the headphones (less often in both), and over time disappears completely.

Diagnostics: The break occurs at the bend of the cord, i.e. either directly at the connector, or at the wire entry into the earphone itself. You can accurately set the location if you turn on playback and rotate the cord. A cracking sound or sound indicates the exact location of the break.

Repair: Cut the cord below the break point and solder it again.

Option with a break at the connector

Plugs usually come in two types - solid molded flexible plastic, a molded hard core and a soft rubber cap. It is necessary to remove the rubber cap; if this is not possible, cut it with a knife.

Cut through the casting with wire cutters and get to the place where the wire is soldered to the metal contacts of the connector. Strip and solder the wire, and put everything back together.

Fill cavities due to removed plastic parts with epoxy glue, faster curing is better.

The cut elastic can be strengthened with bondage made from synthetic threads. Heat shrink tubing can also give good results.

Option with a break at the earphone

It is necessary to disassemble the earphone. Large headphones are assembled with screws. Headphones are smaller - on latches. Headphones droplets, earbuds - adhesive connection. Adhesive connection disassembled either with a knife, or by squeezing the headphones in a yew - due to elastic bending, the crack usually runs along the glued joint.

The wire inside the earphone is tied in a knot to prevent it from being pulled out. Cut the wire, strip it, tie it in a knot and solder it as before. Glue the earphone back together.

Channel blockage

This malfunction is only possible with closed acoustic earphones. The membrane is separated from the channel by a thin metal mesh. Earwax, as the earphone is used, covers this mesh and interferes with the passage of acoustic waves.

Diagnostics: absence of sound despite the fact that the continuity shows the integrity of the headphone windings.

Repair: Disassemble the earphone and wash the mesh in alcohol. Disassembly is preferable so as not to stain the membrane with leaking alcohol and dirt particles.

Membrane damage

Manifestations: crackling, rattling in one of the headphones, difference in playback timbre.

Diagnostics: visual inspection and opening of the earphone.

Repair: After opening, straighten the membrane if it is wrinkled. The effect will be temporary and the headphones will need to be replaced. If there are foreign particles on the membrane, remove them. Wash the mesh that separates the membrane from the surrounding space.

Why is this happening?

Let's look at the photo of the place where the veins broke:

With a small bending radius, the strands accumulate a large fatigue load and break. If you take a paper clip, straighten it and bend it in the middle, first in one direction, then in the other, then after several such bends it will break. The same thing happens with the conductors in the wire.

They fight this in two ways. At first, it is a special wire with a special weave of cores. The central channel made of synthetic threads provides the wire with tensile strength, and the wires wound in a spiral when the wire is bent experience more torsional load than bending. When loaded with torsion, the core is more stable. The second method is to increase the bend radius. To do this, the connector or earphone ends in an openwork flexible plastic structure, which, bending along with the wire, increases the bending radius. But correctly selected rigidity of the plastic is strictly necessary; if the plastic is too hard or too soft, the design will not be of any use.

Additional information: Basic information about soldering can be gleaned from

With modern headphones - both in-ear and on-ear, and vacuum models - it is rarely possible to predict their service life. Manufacturers may provide guarantees, but at any time it may happen that one of the headphones does not work; How to fix it depends on the nature of the breakdown.

Most common causes of problems

If we take into account different types ear designs, the most common types of problems with them are:

Broken wire. The cable leading to one of the speakers can be accidentally interrupted, torn or frayed. This is especially likely if you frequently bend the cord.
Broken speaker membrane. More often found in overhead models, where the speakers larger size and less protected by the body.
Plug failure. This happens if you bend it carelessly when pulling it out of your player or phone.
Software problems with the sound source (incorrectly installed driver, incorrect output setting)

Each of these cases is worth considering separately.

Sound source

Before you think about how to fix your headphones if one doesn't work, you should test them on a different sound source. Connect them to another player, smartphone or amplifier. If everything is correct on another device, then look for the problem in your player. The most common problems encountered are:

Shifted balance. Sometimes, confusing the balance knob with the volume, the user turns it to one side. Then, of course, the sound in one of the channels will be zero.
Poorly inserted plug. This happens especially often with stationary devices. Check connections.
There is a break inside the amplifier or DAC. Then it is not the headphones that need to be repaired, but the sound source.

Broken wire

It is not always possible to immediately determine whether the cable on the left or right is damaged. The gap may be hidden under insulation that is apparently intact. The best way determine the break - try to feel the cable along its entire length, from the speaker input to the input plug. In this case, the music must be turned on. When a problem area is detected, the following effects may occur:

A sound appears that was previously missing
The sound that was previously produced normally disappears
Crackling noises and other side effects are heard

What to do if one earphone does not work due to a break is clear: you need to solder the damaged cable again. Here are some brief instructions:

Prepare your tools. You will need a soldering iron with a tip as thin as possible, solder, flux, and a wooden or ceramic stand for work.
Cut the cable on both sides a few millimeters before the break.
Carefully strip the wires with a knife. The cable usually contains three wires; if the gap is located above the branching into the right and left channels, there may be two of them. Conscientious manufacturers supply them with insulation different colors, which makes repairs easier in such cases.
Tin the stripped ends of the wire with a soldering iron. To do this, place the cleaned end on the work surface, apply flux to it with a soldering iron, and after a few seconds make a gesture with the tip of the soldering iron, similar to the movement when removing varnish. As a result, the wire should receive a kind of hard “tip”, which improves conductivity.
Place a piece of insulating tube (cambric) on each wire. Do the same with the cable as a whole.
Solder wires whose insulation colors are the same.
Protect the solder areas by moving the insulating tube over them. Fix the tube with a lighter, slightly melting it. For reliability, the resulting tourniquet can be bent in the shape of the letter Z and tied with thread, which will reduce the likelihood of repeated rupture.
Do the same for the cable as a whole. For aesthetic reasons, you can choose an insulating tube of the appropriate color.

This method is suitable for any of the above types.

It happens that the wire breaks inside the housing of one of the headphones. To repair in this case, it is necessary to disassemble the body, which is quite simple with overhead models, but difficult with vacuum or liners. Sometimes the disassembly method is obvious. In other cases, you may need advice on forums, where there are likely to be other users of this or a similar model.

To disassemble you may need a scalpel or just a sharp knife. If the body is glued, then you will have to clamp it in a vice so that a crack appears at the place where the glue is glued. After the repair, the seam will have to be glued again.

Membrane damage

As a rule, this is a problem with large models that are often subjected to mechanical stress. Drops may cause the speaker membrane to become deformed or cracked. If you determine that the problem is not with the cable connection, then perhaps the problem area is the membrane.

Unfortunately, you can correct only slight deformations in the form of concavities on your own. As a rule, light pressure is enough for the membrane to regain its shape. But if it is cracked, the headphones need to be repaired by professionals (if they are expensive enough). There is no point in taking budget models to a service center - new ones are easier and cheaper to buy.

Plug failure

One more thing weak point all audio systems - plug. Careless movement and the plug may break in the connector of your player or smartphone. It happens that this is precisely why one earphone does not work; how to fix it - just replace the plug.

It is important to purchase the correct replacement model: for simple headphones it is a three-pin plug, for a headset it is a four-pin plug. Since the wiring may differ from one manufacturer to another, check on specialized forums which model of plug to buy for your headphones or headset and how to connect the wires. Although the latter can be seen in the damaged plug itself. In general, this is done like this:

Cut off the defective plug at a distance of 5-7 mm from the connection.
Strip the insulation from the cable approximately 1 cm in total
Remove 3-4 mm of insulation from each cable core using a stationery or regular knife. One of the wires in each core must be coated with paint; clean it off to the same 3-4 mm.
Twist those cables that are not covered with paint into one.
Unscrew the plug and slide its housing onto the wire before starting soldering.
Solder the twisted cable to the center pin of the plug.
Solder the wires covered with paint to the contacts of the corresponding color.
Once the solder has cooled, connect the headphones to the sound source to make sure that both channels are working and there is a stereo effect. It is better to use specialized test recordings or music with pronounced stereo for testing (for example, Nirvana - Rape Me, Pink Floyd– One of These Days)
If everything works correctly, screw the plug housing onto the connector.

We hope these instructions helped you understand what to do if one earbud isn't working.

Just replace the cable

If you prefer high-quality sound and expensive players or smartphones with a dedicated DAC, then headphones with a replaceable wire may be a good solution for you. Today there are two main standards:

MMCX connector. It is round in shape with a contact in the middle, resembling a miniature version of a television antenna plug. Used by such manufacturers as Shure, iBasso, FiiO, Dunu, TinAudio and others.
The connector is two-pin. It looks like two contact pins that are inserted into the headphone body. Used by QKZ and other manufacturers from the budget segment.

This solution has many advantages:

Easy replacement. Instead of a long repair, you simply buy a new cable and connect your headphones to it.
Affordable price. Basic models of replacement cable cost from 300 rubles in online stores.
Large selection of cables. There are regular models, options with a built-in microphone, with a Bluetooth receiver, as well as audiophile ones made from premium materials. You can also choose a design to suit your taste.

The icing on the cake will be the ability to order the conversion of any headphones to the MMCX standard, so that the cable becomes replaceable. However, this option is not the cheapest and only makes sense for premium headphones.

IN modern world When music is an integral part of life, it is extremely important to be able to listen to it regardless of place and circumstances. However, many headphones tend to break, which does not allow you to get the full range of sensations from a mesmerizing melody or your favorite rhythmic track. Of course, you can buy a new pair, but quality products cost a lot of money. And why buy when you can revive your favorite headphones yourself?

Today we will tell you how to make headphones and continue to enjoy your favorite music to the maximum.

Looking for a problem

Cable repair

Plug repair

Purchase a spare plug. First, buy a new plug to replace the worn one. Cheap goods can be found in online stores or companies that sell electronics. Make sure the connector is suitable for your phone. The best option there will be a metal plug with a stereo signal. The universal plug size is 3.5 millimeters.
Get rid of the old plug. Some plugs can be unscrewed from the cable, others will have to be cut off. Step back a little (2-3 centimeters) and cut it off along with a small piece of wires. Most likely the problem lies in the cable itself, which is located near the plug.
Strip the wires. Remove insulation from wires. Usually there are three wires - one free, non-insulated (this is grounding) and two isolated (left and right signals). There are headphones with two free, uninsulated wires, but their repair is no different from repair with three wires.
Connect the plug to the cable. Usually there are no difficulties with this procedure - you need to first put on the heat-shrink tube, attach the wires to the plug and connect them to the ends. Please note that if on the plug itself you see not two contacts, as is the case with stereo connectors, but one, then you have purchased a mono type of connectors.
Twist the exposed wires so that they form a thin strip with a sharp tip. The free wire must be connected to the sleeve, and the isolated wires must be connected to the other two contacts. If there is no ungrounded wire, then connect a wire with striped (two-color) insulation to the sleeve. It's hard to go wrong here. There is no correct color scheme for connecting, so you can connect incorrectly, but the headphones will work as before. Only the right and left will change places.
Secure the wires to the contacts. Take special pliers and clamp the wires, but they should not intersect or touch each other. Do not press too hard - this may damage the contacts.
Solder the wires. The next step is to solder the wires to the plug. To make the fusion more reliable, you can use sandpaper and make the surface a little rough. Do this manipulation with all wires.
Attach the cover. The last stage is screwing the lid. It must be placed above the spring and connector. The wires must not cross each other. Then check the headphones, if the problem with sound loss persists, the wires may be touching. You will have to disassemble and check the design.

Speaker repair

cut the rubber seal near the main cone with a knife;
remove the speaker from the device;
Place the new speaker in the recess. be careful, because the membrane must not be touched;
If the speaker turns out to be smaller and loose, then you can apply a couple of drops of glue along the edges to fix it.

We told you how to fix your headphones if one doesn't work. We hope these instructions will help you bring your favorite accessory back to life. A few tips below will contribute to a successful repair.

If you are planning to repair headphones, but do not have enough experience, then it is advisable to practice. Old non-working headphones are perfect; if they fail, you won’t mind throwing them in the trash.
Watch your soldering iron carefully while soldering. Do not press it for too long while connecting the contacts. High temperatures can destroy the plastic or damage the contacts.
Follow safety precautions. The soldering tool gets very hot, so it is best to wear protective gloves when using it. If you handle the tool carelessly, you can damage the headphones and get severe skin burns.
If during repairs you damage the liner lining, you can replace it with a similar material. A small piece of silicone rubber is perfect for this case.