Budget consious school/headphones chewed from kinders! please help;)

[higginse]

The kinders in my school lab have chewed through (one side/or both)our inexpensive KOSS headphones. The wires are copper (lots of fine wires) and blue. Each is made of fine wire with a strand of nylon it looks like then are sodrd at the ear piece. I spliced and was able to get the blue and copper seperated. I twisted tightly the copper and the blue to their corresponding wire and then taped with duct tape. It did not work - is there anything I can do to save these - we are on a serious budget so your help is so appreciated. thanks

[jagabo]

The blue nylon string is there to help keep the wires from stretching and breaking in case the cord is pulled too hard. There should be two to four copper wires, each with their own
insulation (mono uses two wires, stereo can use four, or three if they use a common ground). Something like this (note this is four wires at one end of the cable):



Strip the plastic outer casing back a few inches and you should see the individual wires with their own shielding. Strip a short section of each and wire at each end and twist (soldering is better) the similar colored wires together. Be sure there isn't another break somewhere else along the line -- especially near where the wires were cut in the first place. You can test the cable before sealing it up, just be sure the bare wires don't short against each other.

[higginse]

Ok I have stripped them way back and there is not any protective coating? does that matter? just blue and copper twisted wires?

[jagabo]

Are there wires inside the blue shielding and then bare copper wires around the blue shielded wire? So only two sets of wires? Something like this:

[higginse]

blue wires are blue but painted because you can see the copper under so I have on blue twisted with nylon that has 8 fine blue(copper) wires with nylon and then one exactly like that but all copper

[jagabo]

Then you should be able to twist the blue wires to the blue wires and the copper wires to the copper wires. I don't know if the blue "paint' is conductive or not. You may have to scratch the paint off a bit (a little sandpaper or the blade of a knife) so the copper wires underneath get better contact.