Hi - I'm trying to repair a friend's headphones. Believe it or not - he actually chewed through the cord. Don't ask how - I didn't ask cause I don't wanna know. Anyways - when trying to solder it - the solder would just drip off. Couldn't get it to stick at all. I had an idea and tried chopping off a 5cm section and checked for continuity - and there was none. For my mm to even register continuity I had to soak the wire in molten solder for a while. So - how do I get rid of this coating? It's making my life really difficult...
Well, I had the same problem, and i had an idea ... it worked for me, dunno 4 you ? i explain me (sorry for the ****ty english ) you put a blob of solder on your desk, then you put your soldering iron on it, then you put the wires in the solder and you wait for it to harden result, your wires are soldered, it may not be nice, but it works (worked ? ) just don't know if it's gonna work 4 you, but try !
scraping with a knife is the best way.. i know the wires are wery fragile, but find a wery sharp knife and be wery careful... edit: using the metod described by Zazard isn't a wery good idea as you are not sure to get good electrical contact...
You could try paint stripper (methyl ethyl ketone base, or something like Nitromors). Will go for lots of plastics.
Maybe running it over some fine wet and dry paper will take off enough of the insulation to allow you to solder it.
there is simply no way any knife or sandpaper is going to do the job here. The wires are simply too thin. I'll see if I have any paint stripper around.
It's worked for me before. So long as it scratches the insulation it seems to melt a lot quicker when you solder it.
Try using a mini torch or jet lighter to heat it up just enough to burn the coating. Then use a bunch of soldering past to clean up the end of the wire. this is what I have done for headphones and it works for me.
i'm with cpemma on this one, try any of the following, mek, laquer thinner, acetone, bleach, and if none of those work, well, patent it because you could build biohazard suits out of it!
I'll have to try the last three suggestions tomorrow. Err wait - it's 1 am. I mean later today. Yay for staying up late browsing forums...
I do something similar, except rather than putting it on the desk, I get a nice blob of solder on the tip, stick the wire in, and very slowly add more solder to the blob (not for the solder, more for the flux in the solder). Eventually the coating will heat up enough, and the blob will boil and have black moten crap come to the surface, and make a little bad smelling smoke. When I pull the wire out, it has the tinning started. Then I just thin it like normal wire working from the section already tinned to the untinned section, it just burns off the coating as it goes. Though sometimes, if it doesnt work, heating it makes the insulatin more brittle, and I can rub it off with my fingers, and then it tins like normal. But the trick is that the heat is conducted to the wire much better if it is immersed in the solder. just my experiences
My method, or at least when I discovered it. >Take a piece of tin foil, fold it a couple of times onto itself. >Take the wire, place it on the tin foil >Take the soldering iron and press it against the wire that is against the tin foil. >With a sliding motion toward the end of the wire, move the soldering iron, while still pressing against the wire, to the end. That should take off one side of the wire which will reveal the conductors, if you need the other side, turn it over. I know this method works because I strip 30 and 32 AWG wires utilizing this method.
you could always remove the troblesome wire, and replace the whole length with some easy to handle wire?
Just press the soldering iron for a while on the wire.. then try soldering it.. Worked everytime for me.. This wire is just a ain in the ass.. especially if it is very thin...
