Soldering novice… needing many tips here

[Gaogier]

Hello

i have never really done any soldering or welding.

my niece has some cheap girly headphones, that to be honest cost less than £10 as she liked the girly headset, I would rather her have a better headset maybe wireless. Anyway she is 4, can’t blame her, but she accidentally broke the 3.5 connector. She asked me her autistic uncle to fix, I said I will try so I did. I got the new pin, this needed some solder to hold it, however the wire was so thin, it just turned to ash before any soldering happened, just heat from the 3.5 connections.

I took it on to myself to put new wire in the headphones, however I must of used so much soldering wire it’s unbelievable, and even then I only have it just connected. The cap for the 3.5 connector is too small to get past my first (ground/earth or whatever it’s called) connection as my soldering is bad.

I have however managed to get the headset working and playing music at a decent level now, although I had used those break off connection strips as I needed to work out the wires were in the right place.


I plan to make the headset Bluetooth, by that I am going to add a stand alone Bluetooth receiver and connect the headset 3.5 pin to the receiver, making sure the wires are not that long.

also, how is the best way for the solder to “stick” to a the wire, b connection ports?

 

[RandomGrinch]

Hi,

Why don't you post a picture of what you have acheived, along with a pic of the solder and the soldering iron, and we may be able to offer some pearls of wisdom!

 

[mattylad]

There are plenty of videos on Youtube for how to solder.

 

[Justin Passing]

FIrst support your plug. A suitable hole in a lump of wood will do that.

Put the cap on the wire, slid away, as needed.
cut your wire very carefully so it fits inside the space you need it to.
Twist the core to keep it together
fold the ends of the meta f the wires so it lies out of the way. One/two of them may have to go through a hole - fold it back once through.
Other(s) may have to simply lie alongside a contact.
take the wire out carefully
make sure it has the shapes you need then "tin" the wires. No blobs of solder.
Tin the metal connections on the back of the plug.
put any hooky wires in place first - a short dab from a soldering iron wet with solder should join them together. Heat the metal of the plug and push/pull the wire to it.
If the wire's just parralel to a connector (no holes) then have a scotch to calm your hands, and take it slow, with a bit of extra solder on the iron.


If you fiddle with it afterwards, it's likely to come apart.
Try to use/arrange a strain relief so pulling the "cable" doesn't pull on the solder.

 

[flameport]

Headphones in general have very fine wires, and cheapo ones may not even be copper. Attempts to solder such things are a total waste of time.

 

[mattylad]

Having just re-soldered for the third time, the wires on my sons headphones the best tip I can give is:
Practise on something else until you can solder quickly. Plastic moldings that hold the pin can melt quickly and the pin can then fail to make contact because it's been deformed.