Phone plug repair: confused over wires

[smkranz]

Greetings. I am trying to replace the plug on a pair of 'phones...they're not all that as far as phones go, but they're comfy, and we use them when someone in the household is playing the digital piano, because they are quiet for the rest of us in the room. So I'd just as soon try to return them to service with the $3 plug I came home with from Radio Shack.

It's a stereo mini (1/8") plug that has three screw-on (vs. solder) terminals. The phone has two separate leads, with what look like two different colored wires within each...one has copper and red wires, the other has copper and green...and dammit, are they all thin.

Would appreciate some insight into where these various wires go (i.e. what terminals, do some get twisted together, etc.). Are the colored wires coated somehow? If so, am I hosed? If trying to fix these is going to bring me to tears, there's enough reason for that around here as it is these days, and they'll be headed for the can.

Thanks.

[aeriyn]

Hmm.

You got the plug from radio shack?

The coated wires are your signal path wires. The uncoated are the grounds. Red and green sounds odd; that actually makes no sense. Everything I've ever seen has had black for left, red for right... or white for left and red for right.

If I were you, I'd get a solder-on plug and check the datasheet to see a schematic of which lug goes to what part of the miniplug: tip, ring or sleeve.

Tip is left signal, ring is right signal, sleeve is left/right ground. (common ground in normal 3-conductor unbalanced connections.)