What Wires Connect When Repairing a 3.5mm Headphone Jack?

[Instiinct]

So I have earphones with a built in mic and the 3.5mm jack was broken so I cut the cable at the base where it meets the jack. And I have another 3.5mm headphone jack from some old headphones that has the wires for the built in miss as well. I was wondering which wires go together. On the earphone side there is a red, green, and copper colored wires and they all have an enamel coating. There is also a bare wire that seems to be copper but its green colored. On the replacement 3.5mm headphone jack there are a red green and copper colored wires again with an enamel coating. There is also a bare copper wire like the green colored one from the headphones. How do I wire all of this correctly? Please help.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Hi
Welcome.
Any chance of a photograph of that lot?

 

[Instiinct]

Hi
Welcome.
Any chance of a photograph of that lot?

Thanks hi. Yeah I could take a picture when I get home from the mall.

 

[AlephZero]

From your description, I guess your earbuds with mike were wired to a 4-pole jack plug, but your other plug is the 3-pole plug that is "standard" for audio only. Note the way the plugs are divided into 3 and 4 sections by the black insulating rings.

The red and green wires are the two audio channels. On the 3-pole plug the other wire is the common return path. On 4-pole plugs and cables, I don't think there is a universal standard for the color codes of the mike signal wire and the common return wire.

If you don't want to use the microphone, it should be OK to join red to red, green to green, and join the other three wires together (two on one side and one on the other).

Otherwise, get a 4-pole plug, and compare the connections on the old broken one with a continuity tester, or use trial and error - there are only two unknown options!