Your best advice in rewiring a USB headset please.

[MarcMiller]

Hello
I wanted a headset for speech dictation, but I noticed some of the gaming headsets got great reviews for the purpose of listening to music. Getting improved music listening beside getting a noise canceling microphone sounded great to me. So I went about reading Amazon.com reviews and thought I found the perfect headset for me when I ordered a Plantronics - GameCom 780 Gaming Headset which proved to sound as great as the reviews were for it.

The trouble was my new headset was it's very softly covered cable from its origin in the headset to it USB connector. I use things hard and this softly covered cable is not standing up to the way I use it. I am just too rough on it. At present this headset works great when you bend the cable back and forth to establish continuity through its entire length. Incidentally I got a great eBay bargain on this headset and the vendor delivered it imperfect working order so consequently I do not consider it returnable.

So exactly what I would you like to learn to do is splice in a sturdier cable near the headset origins of this cable and may be paste this down with some epoxy which should give me a then sturdily cabled on this great sounding USB headset. I am familiar with splicing tools and soldering but not with the wiring of the cable coming from a headset or opening up an appropriate sturdy cable to perform the splice I want to do.

So any USB cable wiring diagrams of both the wiring probably coming from my headset as well as the wiring of the many cheaply available USB cables would be appreciated. I would also like your best advice on how to carry out this task. Any pitfalls in doing this you know of. Does anybody know the likely colored code of USB cables both from a headset and a independent cable. I have an oscilloscope and a multimeter. Does anybody have a strategy for identifying microphone output and left and right headset pieces using my test equipment? Does anybody also have web links to where similar projects were done and any other advice for me? I would really like to carry out this project successfully.

[AbrogateAnon]

Marc,


There are only 4 wires coming from the USB port and going to the first board on the headset itself Red, White, Green, and Black. IF you were to get a heavier duty cable you could solder the connections to the in-board in the headset or, possibly splice into the cable itself, but some of the newer cables in an effort to provide flexibility, durability, and (in audio cables especially) for noise reduction have nylon fibers woven into the copper strands. That makes for some difficult soldering which is why actually going inside the headset itself and soldering directly to the PCB would be my recommendation. Its just as simple as de-soldering the old wire and re-soldering the new one. It's a delicate procedure, but it can be done quite quickly.

The first picture is of a basic female USB port with the terminations exposed, just for the wire colour. The second is the pin-outputs of a basic USB cable
RED- Power +
WHITE- Data Positive
Green- Data Return
Black- Ground


It is possible depending on who manufactured the headset that the cable colour *might* be different, but the pin-outs should be the same.


Good luck,


AA

[jagabo]

https://www.google.com/#q=usb+pinouts