Music has always been one of the primary accompaniments to daily life. Many of us heavily depend on music to perk up our mood, provide inspiration to an otherwise tedious day, or simply offer relaxation during instances of rest. Yet such a gift can vanish when we find our headphones damaged, especially when it suddenly stops working. In this article, we will be discussing how to repair your bent headphone jack, plus several other tips that can help you preserve your valuable headgear.
When you heavily rely on your headphones and audio device to provide you with adequate music supply day in and day out, these may, in time, get damaged. As with any other item that gets used all the time, your headphones and audio device are also prone to various atrocities, including its natural wear-and-tear. While most devices are built with durable materials, some of the more affordable makes and models may be frailer than the rest. Nonetheless, the damage is sometimes unavoidable, even when you do your best to use your headphones and audio device with care. Since most of their parts are small and fragile, they eventually get dislocated or, worse, destroyed.
The headphone jack is one of the most essential and yet vulnerable components of your audio device. This is because the headphone jack houses your headphone plug, and this plug gets inserted and removed regularly, depending on your frequency of use. Unless you let your headphone plug remain inside your audio device’s headphone jack all the time, this port tends to be one of the first parts that get damaged aside, of course, from your device’s USB port.
Yet, all may not be lost. If you find your pair of headphones have stopped working, there may still be a chance for you to fix this chaos. This article aims to help you save your headphone jack—or, at least, pinpoint what’s wrong with it before deciding to chuck your device or your headphones into the garbage bin. Read on and find out what’s making your headphone jack stop working. We included a brief discussion on how to repair a bent headphone jack, as well.
What’s Causing the Loose Headphone Jack?
Before you decide to throw away your device or your headphones, you should first identify what’s keeping them from playing your favorite tunes. If you have a loose headphone jack, you should know why it is loose and how you can salvage it.
Several elements may cause your loose headphone jack, including the inevitable corrosion of your jack’s inside walls, a headphone plug with an incompatible size for your headphone jack, accumulated dust or dirt, a crooked headphone plug, or even your device case blocking the plug-jack connection. You need to check both your headphones and your device for such a loose connection problem before opting to contact a repair center or find a replacement for either. Drastic measures do cause extra money, and you can save yourself much unnecessary expenditure by checking your jack-plug connection first.
How to Fix Headphone Jack
Several factors may cause a loose headphone jack. But before you conclude that you have a loose headphone jack, you should do the following:
Plug your headphones into a second gadget
The first thing you should do is plug your headphones into a second device. If the headphones do not fit, then the problem may not be your jack but your plug. While most headphones are equipped with a 3.5mm plug or connector, your specific headset may have a bigger or smaller one.
Check your jack and plug for size compatibility
Do your headphone jack and plug have the same size compatibility? If you aren’t sure about this, check the specifications of both your headphones and your audio gadget. They may have different size indications.
Dust and dirt particles may be inside your headphone jack
Dust and dirt may be clogging up the inside of your headphone jack. Use a flashlight to look into your headphone jack to check it out for such debris.
Check for inevitable signs of corrosion.
While your headphone plug is made of a hard metal that allows it to be durable, habitual use of it and its exposure to the elements cause its unavoidable corrosion. Your headphone jack’s inside walls may also be corroding. Such a condition can also alter both their sizes, causing ill-fitting and loose connections. Check both for any discoloration or rust. The presence of such conditions reveals the possibility of corrosion.
Your device’s case may be affecting the connection.
While many smartphone cases perfectly fit their intended recipients, some instances have diminutive factory defects that may cause subtle ill-fitting. If your device’s case is too thick or is blocking parts of your headphone jack, such a condition may cause a loose jack-plug connection. Temporarily remove the device case and reinsert your plug into the jack to check if it solves the problem.
Check if your headphone plug is straight.
You should also check your headphone plug. See if it’s straight. A bent headphone plug causes connection problems, as well.
Common Problems with a Bent Headphone Plug
Loose headphone jack
A loose headphone jack makes it slip off your device plug. When this occurs, you get to have unstable—or even lost—audio feedback. This can be highly annoying, especially when you are in a public place where you don’t have the leisure of using a loudspeaker instead.
Stereo mode issues
Such a bent in your headphone plug causes interference in the wires embedded inside your headphone plug. This, then, causes issues with your stereo mode. One problem resulting from such a condition is having just one side of your headset working.
Static audio
Because such wires inside your headphone plug are sensitive, a bent headphone plug may offer you static sounds. Such annoying noise can ultimately drown out your audio, especially when the bend gets worse.
Volume Loss
You may also experience volume loss. A bent in your headphone plug disengages the embedded wires from their appropriate functions. So, even when you keep fixing your device or headphone settings, you’ll still have that low volume, providing you with inadequate audio feedback.
How to Fix a Bent Headphone Jack
You must know how to repair a bent headphone jack. While we’re on this topic, you should know that most people confuse the headphone jack with the headphone plug and vice versa.
Technically speaking, a plug refers to the male connector, while a jack refers to the female one. In plain terms, the headphone jack is the one that belongs to your audio device—smartphone, computer, and tablet, among others. The headphone plug is the one at the end of your headphones’ cable. For purposes of consistency, let’s remain with the proper terms and acclimate ourselves to their appropriate usage—the headphone plug is the male connector while the headphone jack is the female connector.
A bent headphone plug requires you a bit of do-it-yourself confidence and knowledge. You need to have some background on your headphones and audio device’s different electrical workings before even deciding to do some quick—or lengthy–tweaking. If you don’t have any knowledge or experience with such a technical job, it may be best to contact an authorized technician to check out your headphones and your device.
Nevertheless, if you choose to take the risk and fix your own problem, you must remember that such an undertaking may affect or even void your headphones’ warranty. This can be devastating, especially if you are still within the provided warranty period. You may run the risk of losing qualification for future replacements or repairs. You may also exacerbate your headphone or plug’s issue and increase the need to pay extra for its repair or replacement.
But if you insist, there are a couple of ways to repair a bent headphone jack—or, instead, a headphone plug. While one method is non-invasive, the other is. These methods can ossibly damage your headphones. However, if you get to execute these solutions correctly, you may learn how to fix such a problem the next time it occurs easily.
Nonetheless, remember that your headphone plug is only 3.5 millimeters. It is a fragile part of your headphones that can quickly get damaged. A wrong move can inadvertently and permanently destroy it, and you’ll have to replace your headset, unnecessarily spending extra cash.
Straighten your headphone plug
This process requires you to be gentle and decisive at the same time. An erroneous push or pull can make the issue far worse. However, this method merely needs several tools that you may already have.
You will need
- A straight ruler
- A couple of thin pliers
Process
1. Prepare your two pliers. With one of them, hold the tip or end part of your plug. With the other, hold the middle or ring part.
2. Lightly bend the plug back into place.
3. Use a straight edge to check its alignment. If it’s not straight enough, try again until it aligns with your guide.
Replace your headphone plug
If you’ve already straightened your headphone plug and it still doesn’t work, it may be time to replace your plug.
You will need
- New 3.5mm headphone plug
- Heat shrink
- Damp cloth or sponge
- Scissors or wire cutter
- A tiny, sharp knife or a wire stripper
- Soldering iron
- Solder
- Third hand tool
Process
1. Before you start, purchase a new headphone plug. Make sure that it is the 3.5mm type and that it has the same number of connections on the tip of the metal part that plugs in. You can easily find one in electronics stores or online.
2. Cut off the headphone plug from its connecting cable. Alternatively, you can use a sharp pair of scissors to do the job.
3. With your sharp knife or wire stripper, peel away an inch of the cable’s external cover or jacket starting from the tip. If the coating is enamel, you will have to carefully melt it off over a flame. Inside, you will find 3 types of wires, 2 coated wires and a ground wire. This is what the colors indicate:
- White – This is for the left channel or the plug’s tip. This might be green or blue as well.
- Red – This is for the right channel or the plug’s ring.
- Bare/Uncoated – This is the ground wire and is sometimes coated black as well.
4. Switch on your soldering iron. Once it’s hot, use the solder and apply it to the tips of the wires. This process is referred to as ‘tinning the wires.’ Some headphones are provided with a couple of ground wires. If this is the case with your headphones, wrap them together before you start tinning them. Use your prepared sponge or damp cloth to eradicate solder that may have gotten into the iron, preventing short circuits from happening.
5. Slip your prepared heat shrink over the same wires. Such a move will protect and insulate your wires.
6. Get your new headphone 3.5mm plug. Unscrew the casing. Insert the wires through the opened casing. Be sure that the plug’s casing is facing the appropriate direction.
7. Hold your new headphone plug in place with a third hand tool. A popular tool in soldering, this makes it easier for you to connect the wires to the new plug.
8. Begin with your ground wire. Insert its end into the contacts inside the new headphone plug. Insert the left one as well and follow it up with the right one.
9. Pull the heat shrink casing over the newly connected wires and re-screw the case into the new headphone plug.
10. Test your newly fixed headphones. This method should make your headphones work again. If it doesn’t, you may have interchanged the right and left wires. You can, however, de-solder the same wires and exchange the said wires, allowing it to work this time.
Final Thoughts
As we have already established, this article discusses how to repair a bent headphone jack. Because most people get confused with the plug and the jack, we aim to correct such erroneous use. So, the headphone jack is the female connector found on your audio device, while the headphone plug is the male connector located on the tip of your headphones.
In essence, then, this article does not tell you how to repair a bent headphone jack. Instead, it provides you with steps to fix a bent headphone plug. While it is essential for you to attempt fixing your headphone plug before even contacting an authorized technician to do so, however, you need to remember that such an undertaking might cause you to lose your headphones’—or even audio device’s—warranty.
To avoid this, make sure that you are careful with the do-it-yourself methods you use to damage your audio equipment. Better yet, protect your headphones from such annoying damage by making sure that you use them properly. Avoid pulling the cable and, instead, gently pull out the plug from your device. Untangle your headphones’ cable as well and store your unit in an appropriate case. A right-angle plug is also far better as it is less capable of getting bent.