Andy Hobson

Hi,

I've got some expensive sony portable headphones which have got a broken connection somewhere in their wires. I basically need to re-wire them with a donor cable from some old cheap in-ear phones.

The question is how the hell do I strip the wires ? They're not individually shielded, instead each individual copper strand is coated in something. Is there a way to strip this off to make a good solder ? I was thinking maybe something chemical might do it.

Any help would be much appreciated !

Thanks,

Andy.

TelBoy

Sony will re-wire them for you, surely?

Andy Hobson

They're about 4 years old and discontinued so I doubt they would be interested. If they were they'd probably want a fortune knowing them :-(

OllyK

Putting donor wire on from poor quality headphones is probably not the best idea anyway. Try getting something decent from your local electonics dealership, if they are a small outfit they may well solder it all up for you for next to nothting.

TelBoy

Worth asking though. I had some electrostatics done a year or so back (not Sony though, admittedly), and it wasn't that bad. You could also ask an after-market specialist like Russ Andrews to do it - that would be more expensive, yes, but if they're already decent, it might be worth it and you could order the length of cable which best suits your needs.

Better than attempting a diy job on something so delicate, imo.

sparkykev

If the coating is varnish, clean it off with some fine sandpaper.

hedgehog

Often these headphone cables are a total nightmare to fix. This assumes that you can even get at the wires you need to get to as sometimes each ear has an insulator, then a conductor, then an insulator inside this conductor and then another conductor.

Often there is carbon fibre mixed in with the conductors for strength. This "hairy" wire is almost impossible to solder with your only chance being a really hot iron. In other cases the wire may be stainless steel and again this will give you lots of fun on the soldering front.

It many cases it can be done but rather you than me.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Where's the break in the wire anyway? And can you open up the earpieces to completely remove the old cable?

The copper wire in the existing cable is covered in a hard enamel. The best way to remove it that I've found is to gently scrape it with a scalpel. Be careful and patient and it does scrape off - although as hedgehog says, there's often a thread woven into the wire that you'll want to separate out or it'll get in the way of the solder joint.

Andy Hobson

Thanks for all the advice guys.

The break is actually at a socket the wires connect into. The socket is a proprietory Sony job so I think it would make more sense to ditch the whole socket and just run new wires direct to the drivers with a regular 3.5mm jack on the other end.

The solder points on the drivers are accessible.

It is the nightmare "hairy" wire. Taking into account all that's been said I think I may go for some more chunky wire with individually screened channels.
Failing that it's the "professional repair" route...