How can I hook up cheap dollar store headphone cord with jack to a mini speaker from a hallmark card?

i keep playing around with it and eventually i get a short blast of music and then lose it. i really need help

Comments

[bwrussell]

Yes. cut the wires on both and attach them together. You may have to try both polarities for the wires but when you get it right it should work. The only thing i don't know is if the iPod can drive the speaker. If it's small you shouldn't have a problem. If it won't drive it you will need to build an amplifier too.

[DoctorDv]

Attatch what two wires together, and is it normal for there to be a red magnetic wire on the inside? Thanks for the advice!
-Doctordv

[bwrussell]

By "magnetic wire" I assume you mean insulated "magnet wire". It's simply an insulated copper or aluminum wire. You will have to melt or shave the insulation off however. A lighter to the end works well.

[DoctorDv]

So I have a headphone cable and it branches out to two headphones. One consists of a green wire and a copper wire. The other consists of a red wire and a copper wire. I am assuming that the red and green wires are magnetic wires, so how can i hook this up to my speaker which just has negative and positive leads. I would really appreciate your advice. Thank you!

-Doctordv

[bwrussell]

I can't believe I missed this. Your headphones are stereo. Each set, green plus copper and red plus copper, make up one channel. The colored wire is the signal (positive) and the copper wire is ground.
If you are fine with mono sound (you will lose some of the sounds) then cut one of the sets back, say green and copper and just wire the red to the speaker positive and the copper to the speaker negative.
To get around losing the second channel you can wire a second speaker to the green set or you can convert the stereo audio files to mono. It's possible the iPod has a setting for playing in mono, check the settings, possibly in the equalizer (EQ).

[DoctorDv]

Sorry to bother you again, but I just tried out your colored wire=positive copper wire=negative and it didnt work. I know the ipod has the power to blastthe music because every once in a while I'll get a blast of music. So for troubleshooting...are the wires allowed to touch? Also, should i burn the ends of the wires?

[bwrussell]

Did you try reversing the polarity? Maybe try the other set. Use a multimeter when it's supposed to be running.

One thing that occurs to me is that ipods have a system where they detect if headphones are plugged in. I'm not sure how it works but it could be causing problems. Sorry I'm not more help.

[DoctorDv]

Thank you so much! I will have to try this out. I'll send you a message when I make the instructable this information is needed for. Thanks again!

-Doctordv

[bwrussell]

Sorry about the rapid fire. You can probably just solder the magnet wire without removing any insulation. The insulation on most modern magnet wire acts as flux during soldering.

[canucksgirl]

Is this a trick question???

You posted an instructable for " Hack that Musical Greeting Card! ". In the photo (of your instructable), you show your "cheap dollar store headphones" hooked up to the greeting card...

Are you trying to say that your Instructable doesn't work?

[DoctorDv]

No the headphones in the picture are white apple headphones. I was wondering if I could cut dollar store headphones which have two wires a magnetic one and a copper one, and then attatch it to a speaker so when I plug it into my ipod it will play out loud. Thanks!

-Doctordv