Database Users

About 3.5mm adapter - Are they stereo? Can a broken one be fixed?

Hi. I broke my 3.5mm adapter, two of the connections are now broken. I soldered both wires back but I don't know if they should be soldered with a specific contact. I chose the each wire with a contact, randomly. I put the little plastic case together and, of course, it doesn't work. The sound still comes out of the speakers.
So, is it ruined? The adapter is very simple so I thought I could do it myself.
My second question is that if I buy another adapter, would I have to buy one that's stereo? I saw some descriptions on ebay and some are listed as stereo and some as mono, but they look the same.
Thanks.

My experience
octavia said:
So, is it ruined? The adapter is very simple so I thought I could do it myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did some surgery on my 3-in-1 USB Adapter and repaired it. I'd left my headset plugged into it when I put it in my bag and something must have pressed against it, pushing the socket at an angle and causing the case halves to split apart. I fully dissasembled it and when I realised the studs which the screws go into had broken clean off, it was out with the superglue with a thin bead around the edges and squashing the halves together in a rubber jawed hobby vice while it dried. It's all fixed now but as the halves are now inseperable, I cant tell you which of those thin wires goes where. The obvious choice would be to carefully inspect the blobs of solder to see which have a 'stump' of wire still embedded in them and try those but be careful because Russian roulette with the wires cannot be good for the circuitry in the phone if you get it wrong. There is a picture of the HTC extUSB pinout accessible through the Kaiser wiki and if you have a multimeter, some thin copper wire for probes and lots of patience, you should be able to work it out.
My second question is that if I buy another adapter, would I have to buy one that's stereo? I saw some descriptions on ebay and some are listed as stereo and some as mono, but they look the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not seen a mono one but as the device I have was very cheap (under £10) and plays stereo fine, you may as well splash out on a stereo one

Cradle-style holder with headphone jack for car

Bought one of these:
eBay - search for "FUZE Car Kit" - The one I bought was "C529"
Fits the Fuze like a glove... But best of all: I took the thing apart because I had no interest in FM-modulated sound and found the 3 wires that went from the quasi-USB connector to the modulator circuit board. Those three were (you guessed it) red, white, and black - the 3 wires needed for audio signal...
1. Took it apart totally removing both the switch and the modulator part
2. made a new back out of a piece of plastic
3. went to radio shack, bought a "stereo mini" (1/8) female receiver and wired it to the red/white/black wires that were going to the modulator
4. drilled a 1/4 inch hole in the side of the rest of the housing for the headphone plug
5. rewired red-to-red, black-to-black (since I removed the switch)
VOILA! What i WANTED! A cradle-style holder for the FUZE with a stereo (headphone) jack so that I can just plug in a wire to my aux-input and get my tunes through the radio without the crummy sounding modulation
Yay. Ok you guys may or may not find this useful - but just wanted you to know it was very easy and do-able.

bought exactly the same thing! the fm transmitter switches of randomly, plus I can't listen to my cd's from my car stereo.
Thinking of modding it so that I can attach a speaker.
Can you post a pic of your mod?
thanks

wanwarlock - what kind of car do you have? I ask only because you could do what I did to a "T". If you have a newer car with either a stock head-stereo that has an AUX or CD Changer input or an aftermarket stereo with one of those - then you're set! You can buy adapters on eBay that make your CD Changer/AUX input a regular RCA style input (Red/White). Then go to RadioShack and buy an adapter to go from a Stereo-Mini Female to RCA-style Male and you're done - just plug that wire into the stereo input on your cradle and you're listening to the phone... Unplug and you're listening to whatever else Let me know if you have questions

any pics...?

Yes step by step picutres please if possible i would like to do soemthing like this for my phone as well. And is there any way to get the microphone connection as well? So we can use something like this thanks
nvm: just realized the mic input thing was a usb connection. I was thinking it was the other type of connections like regular iphone headset connections.

(as requested).
The first picture is the cradle attached to a bracket I made... The Honda Pilot has a bizarre little pocket beneath the radio above the "not an ash tray" that is totally useless. I cut a piece of wood, attached a bent strip of aluminum to the wood and a piece of foam to the top of the wood (to allow for a snug fit in the pocket), drilled a few holes in the aluminum, and attached the cradle to the aluminum.
The second picture shows the cradle from the outside - the power jack and the headphone jack.
The last picture shows the wiring detail. Let me know if you have any questions -

mybikegoes200 said:
(as requested).
The first picture is the cradle attached to a bracket I made... The Honda Pilot has a bizarre little pocket beneath the radio above the "not an ash tray" that is totally useless. I cut a piece of wood, attached a bent strip of aluminum to the wood and a piece of foam to the top of the wood (to allow for a snug fit in the pocket), drilled a few holes in the aluminum, and attached the cradle to the aluminum.
The second picture shows the cradle from the outside - the power jack and the headphone jack.
The last picture shows the wiring detail. Let me know if you have any questions -
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmm interesting thanks so much for the pictures.

thanks for the pics... i imagine this wont work with the seidio case

extensive said:
thanks for the pics... i imagine this wont work with the seidio case
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not even a little chance - the cradle fits the fuze *very* snug. So snug that I might actually sand it down a bit. With a case of any sort it definitely wouldn't fit.

This is pretty sick I must admint. However, I find myself wanting a cradle that has NO electronic connections, that way I can take the phone out of the cradle and mess with it in my hand and it still be connected to the audio cable and/or power cable.
Anyone know of a good cradle like this?

seanvree said:
This is pretty sick I must admint. However, I find myself wanting a cradle that has NO electronic connections, that way I can take the phone out of the cradle and mess with it in my hand and it still be connected to the audio cable and/or power cable.
Anyone know of a good cradle like this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why not just get the generic holder and a car charger?

USB Head Unit
Another solution that I am going to try shortly is hooking up the Fuze via usb cable and set it to drive mode. I might need to put the music in a root folder but I will report back.
I'm trying it on a Pioneer head unit with USB functionality input.
Has anyone tried this yet?

i think it can work. not too familiar with usb headunits i.e. file structure etc. what does your manual say? theoretically should work in drive mode.
my head unit only has aux in...

Audio Distortion Under Certain Circumstances

I use my phone as an audio player quite a bit, but I've recently noticed and issue and I was wondering if anyone else had similar problems or perhaps even overcome them. When I have my Vibrant plugged in to a power source and I plug in my headphones everything sounds fine, but if I'm plugged in to power and connect a line out cable (e.g. a male to male cable for connecting to a car stereo) I get a really nasty hiss as well as other audio artifacts. I have tried numerous combinations of different power and audio cables, headphones, and audio sinks (car stereo, home stereo, computer audio in, etc.), but the result is always consistent.
Power + AUX cable = bad audio
Power + Headphones = Good audio
AUX Cable - Power = Good Audio
Has anyone else seen/solved this with their phones?

I assume you are talking about car charger and aux out and the noise that increases as your speed increases. If that's what you are talking about I get it to. Something needs to be grounded. Exactly what I don't know. I would ask a car audio person. If I'm not mistaken all radio components ie. radio amp are grounded that's why you don't hear it. Let me make this clear nothing is broken. More like this configuration was not planned for. I'm thinking the cig lighter is not grounded by car maker. Hope this helped.

In the car audio world I seem to recall some issues with Pioneer units when an owner somehow accidentally made a bad connection. It seems that a tiny fusible link in the unit would blow, and a ground loop noise would get introduced into the system. The fix was to ground the RCA cable inputs to the stereo chassis.
Not a viable solution in this case. I also recognize this may have little direct bearing on the problem, but wonder if somehow a poor power/audio connector in the unit is/has caused the same sort of problem to rear it's ugly head.
Step 1 I think - Do you have another Aux cable to test that as a poor ground on it may have developed from just bending and twisting in normal use.

Go to radio shack and pick up a ground loop isolator. That will get rid of the feedback noise.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I also have the same sound in my car. I remember way back when I thought I was a cool kid and rocked the big subwoofers in my trunk I had the same noise. Then I learned that you couldn't have the power cable running up to the battery and rca cables going to the head unit next to each other. You had to have them separated meaning one would have to go along driver side n the other along passenger side. I tried that and presto no more noise. Its the interference of electricity generated from the alternator. Hence, Faster the engine/ alternator goes, higher the noise pitch equalling more interferance due to the higher voltage/current running thru the power cable. Sorry for all that useless info lol!! Quick fix is don't have the power cable plugged in at the same time. The sound goes away, for me at least. Hope it works for you. Other than that I wouldn't really know how to fix it with a cell phone unless that isolator thingy that the other guy said to buy would work.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

You should tweet @supercurio
if anyone would know, he would

This has nothing to do with software. This is basically electrical interference in audio channel because the audio is not grounded and power plug from cigarette lighter USB is grounded. Get the isolator, they are usually less than $20, just make sure all the inputs/outputs are what's compatible with your setup.
Mine plugs into AUX port on the car, then i have a 3.5mm Y splitter, one end for phone/mp3 player the other for Sat radio.

Thanks for the tips guys; I think I'll pick up an isolator and give that a try. Unfortunately, the local Radio Shack only stocks isolators for RCA jacks, not 3.5mm, so I'll have to wait at least a few more days until it gets here.

The isolator finally showed up, and it worked perfectly. Thanks again for the advice.

Sweet, now get a flux capacitor and find a straight stretch of road. At 88 mph you'll be going at 88mph with a flux capacitor!

[DIY] Convert CTIA headset to earphone with 1cm wire [Xperia 2011/OMTP connectors]

Note: TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, I won't be responsible for your damage or lost of the phone because you just short-circuited your phone or what so ever, I didn't point a gun on your head and demand you to do it I'd just explored this method randomly and pure randomness, nothing else, and a brave heart maybe btw, i can't imagine how to make the phone short-circuit with just bridged the gnd and mic plate of the headset.
Since our phone are stuck in OMTP connectors forever and where newer phones/tablets/phablets are now having CTIA connectors and producing more and more CTIA standard headset everywhere. It is hard to find a OMTP standard headset nowadays (except if you want to buy Nokia phones, i mean asha series, not lumia, asha series usually implement OMTP standard connectors and headset while Lumia-s having CTIA, but who would want to buy a phone just for a working OMTP headsets, seriously... ). When you connected a wrong standard headset to your phone, you will know whats went wrong, like the sound lose the bass and vocal, mic doesn't work, handfree button doesn't work and so on...
And if good quality earphone (additional condition that's you are an audiopile, sounds quality means everything to you) out there just cost too much for you but you have a good quality CTIA headsets (eg: Samsung, Sony OEM headsets) plus you don't want to do the soldering work to change CTIA to OMTP by exchange mic and gnd cable.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you a way to convert your CTIA headset to a working earphone with only 1 piece of 1cm wire (when i say earphone, of course it mean the mic will not be able to function. Why? good question, continue reading)
HOW to DIY:
1. try to grab any wire in your house, or just cut out a cable from any of the malfunctioned wire keyboard or mouse, then cut out 1cm of copper wire from the cable, you may make extra 1cm or 2 to do the hanging work.
2. use a pliers to "apply pressure" on 1 side of the tip to make it thin just like a paper, make sure the thin wire length must not exceed about 0.5cm, the sole idea of this DIY is make a bridge to connect gnd and mic wire to cheat the phone that you just connected a earphone, and this is why the mic function will be gone.
3. then bend the thin wire tip to 90 degree, or any degree to suit you on how to hang that wire on the phone's headset connector. Again, make sure your thin wire length must not exceed 0.5cm!!!
4. insert the thin wire tip into the headset connector, not middle of course, i mean "stick to the wall"
5. the remaining wire is up to you on how to hang the wire but the thin wire must be "stick to the wall" of the headset connector. Use paper tape or glue or whatever you can get to stick the wire with your phone, don't let loose. Use your imagination.
6. then try connect your CTIA headset to your phone and play some music, check for sound quality, Is it the same sound quality that you get with other newer phone. If you found it hard to insert the headset jack, "apply more pressure" on the thin wire tip, make it thinner then test again.
7. if it works, congrats, you just made it there!!!
** if you are unsure how it does, check the picture or leave your comment(not pm), share what is not being clear in this post, allow me to refine the details of the procedure, XDA forum is all about sharing ideas....
this same procedure could convert OMTP headset to normal earphone in CTIA standards connectors too (theoretically). OR should I name it universal CTIA/OMTP to earphone converter trick?
ps: if you have a better vocabulary to replace "apply pressure" please suggest me or you found this will cause catastrophic damage on our phone, please do notice me about it!
info: i made this work on my Xperia Neo and China made tablet (RK29xx tabs) which also using OMTP connectors and i'm using Lenovo and Samsung OEM headset to test on both of them.
what is CTIA/OMTP? what are the difference between them? read: Phone_connector

This works for my Xperia NEO! Thenks Man :good:

Headphone cable launches google voice search

This is in my car. I have a pretty high quality headphone cable to connect the phone to my car to listen to music. Every time I plug in the cable the phone it launches google voice search, I can easily dismiss it and everything is fine but it also prevents me from using Google voice search after this.
I'm quite certain it has something to do with the phone thinking I'm plugging in a headset that also has a microphone. The thing is I've used the same setup for both the N4 and N5 with no problems.
Is there a fix for this? Or anyone else experience anything similar? I'll have to try out some new cables.

Me too. I think it is a a headset thing like you said. I would like a solution for this problem as well.

I had this issue myself. This is actually caused by a poor ground on the 3.5mm jack on the stereo system itself which is causing feedback to loop back to the phone. The phone picks up on this and thinks you just pressed a button on a headset, even if there isn't a button to press.
You have a few options:
Stream via Bluetooth if supported, and ditch the cable all together. Expect slightly less than optimal audio quality.
Break open the stereo and run a better ground to a part that isn't inside the stereo. This will void your warranty on the your car stereo.
Buy one of these, and re-wire the 3.5mm jack. This is what I ended up doing (more about this later).
If you end up doing #3, you can just plug it in and go, without any warranty voiding stuff, however it looks ugly having that box thing hang down. Here's what I did to make it look a whole lot better, but also voids warranty.
Separate the female 3.5mm jack from the stereo face plate and the radio hardware.
Disassemble the female 3.5mm headphone jack so that it's no longer flush with the plastic face plate.
Chop off the female end, and chop off the male end on the GLI (the thing I linked above in #3), and solder the two together.
Re-mount the female end of the GLI to the face plate, and tuck away the additional hardware behind the stereo
Alternatively, you can solder the male 3.5mm jack to the GLI and run that as your 3.5mm cable.
The alternative way will give less interference as there's one less connection point, but it's not optimal as the 3.5mm cable may not be long enough.
Use shielded shrink tube on all connection points, and make sure that you wrap it in some EMI Shielding Tape for the best audio throughput. The EMI stuff is optional too.

Wiltron said:
I had this issue myself. This is actually caused by a poor ground on the 3.5mm jack on the stereo system itself which is causing feedback to loop back to the phone. The phone picks up on this and thinks you just pressed a button on a headset, even if there isn't a button to press.
You have a few options:
Stream via Bluetooth if supported, and ditch the cable all together. Expect slightly less than optimal audio quality.
Break open the stereo and run a better ground to a part that isn't inside the stereo. This will void your warranty on the your car stereo.
Buy one of these, and re-wire the 3.5mm jack. This is what I ended up doing (more about this later).
If you end up doing #3, you can just plug it in and go, without any warranty voiding stuff, however it looks ugly having that box thing hang down. Here's what I did to make it look a whole lot better, but also voids warranty.
Separate the female 3.5mm jack from the stereo face plate and the radio hardware.
Disassemble the female 3.5mm headphone jack so that it's no longer flush with the plastic face plate.
Chop off the female end, and chop off the male end on the GLI (the thing I linked above in #3), and solder the two together.
Re-mount the female end of the GLI to the face plate, and tuck away the additional hardware behind the stereo
Alternatively, you can solder the male 3.5mm jack to the GLI and run that as your 3.5mm cable.
The alternative way will give less interference as there's one less connection point, but it's not optimal as the 3.5mm cable may not be long enough.
Use shielded shrink tube on all connection points, and make sure that you wrap it in some EMI Shielding Tape for the best audio throughput. The EMI stuff is optional too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! Well it looks like I'm In trouble. As my car is a Toyota Prius classic which has a cassette deck. I use a cassette adapter to a female plug adapter to a thin male plug which fits through my case. Two adapter is one too many I would guess. Thanks for your time and input on what to do to fix this issue.

Every time I connect the headphones to the Nexus 6P start Google Voice, thus interrupting several times (every minute or so) what I'm listening: music from Play music, streaming radio from Chrome, etc ...
How can I solve this problem?
Thank you.