headphone wring

[bramley]

I' m attempting to replace jacks on several pairs of headphones, the stranded wire won't accept any of the various solders I have , which work fine for normal guitar projects etc.

I have tried scuffing the strands ( as best as strands can be scuffed)

Any ideas / experiences?

[pdf64]

Normally the heat from the soldering iron / solder will burn the coating off. Get a fresh blob of solder on flat iron tip, and feed the end of the wire into it.
Turn the soldering iron temperature up high, if it's adjustable.
Or use a variac to boost the line voltage to the iron, to increase the temperature.

[booj]

yea that type wire is stubborn stuff. I plant the wire where it won't move, and just keep feeding solder on to the tip of the iron while I "bath" the wire in molten solder. It takes a little patience and some scrubbing, but it'll give eventually.

[oc disorder]

Must confess to repairing a few earbuds and I found if I clean the wire (after
rubbing it gently on emery paper) with isopropyl alcohol that seems to help.
Sometimes it takes a few go's before I end up with a neat end !

[Steve Conner]

It's probably tinsel wire, which is made of copper foil wrapped round a core of nylon threads. The design is supposed to make it break resistant, but as a side effect it's a complete pain to solder.

My plan was always to use the hottest soldering iron possible to burn up the nylon.