The new Apple iPhone earphones are great but they require your affection. My left earphone stopped working and couldn’t use them anymore for listening music. I assumed the problem was near the plug and decided to replace it with a new 4 pole male mini jack I got from ebay.
I started by cutting the cable near the old plug. Then I identified the role of each wire by checking on which pole of the plug it’s connected. This part is a little tricky. There are many cables in red, green and golden color and they are all insulated. Also there are thin fibers between them.
I had to strip all the cables and remove the fibers. Then I used my soldering iron with plenty of solder touching the end of the wires to melt and remove their insulation and tin them at the same time. That way I was able to check the continuity between the wires and the old plug. I followed the same process to tin the wires on the earphones cable.
After that it was fairly easy to solder them on the new plug. The new plug is metallic, so I wrapped them with insulation tape and added a drop of silicone glue. My earphones are fixed and everything seems to work fine. 🙂
