Repair your Sennheisser MM50 or convert iPhone originals to CX300

There is already more than one article circling the blogosphere about the mod to make the original iPhone mic headphones actually a Sennheiser CX300 with a microphone. Despite the similarity with this photo-tutorial, it is not precisely that but the operation to follow is identical.

In this case we are going to repair a Sennheiser MM50 headphones for iPhone.

We need:

A playful cat and an oversight for this to happen to us:

We see here that we have even cut the cable gland but it does not matter, there is still a good piece left and it will serve so that the cable does not suffer with the entrance to the head.

We need a fast soldering iron of about 100W, it is important that it be fast because if it is not we can melt or unsolder the wires of the coil of the micro-speaker that are inside and this would make its subsequent repair almost impossible.

We extract the ear pad as if we were going to change it, now we remove the earpiece metal ring. I have done it with the thumb, index and ring nails at the same time and it has taken me about 7 attempts to remove it since it is easy for it to tilt and get half hooked. If we firmly pull the entire crown at the same time, it ends up coming out, do not force with tools that can grate or deform the ring.

Then you have to pry a little with a mini screwdriver since the capsule and cover are glued with a soft glue.

If the tip is too rusty, apply a little plumbing stripper a few minutes before.

By the way, some of you will recognize this power strip as "The EBE strip"

We proceed to fix the receiver in a clamp of the robot with clamps to be able to desolder firmly and quickly.

We will pull each wire while we apply the hot nien soldering iron with a small drop of tin attached to its tip. It transmits better with the drop on and thus we will not overheat anything because the welding is immediate. If you see that the cable does not come off quickly, wait about 15 or 20 seconds to wait for the piece to cool. Heat the soldering iron more until after 4 seconds of the droplet smoking. About 12 seconds in total ... If you do not have expertise with fast soldering irons, you can try a daher of 40 to 60 W. The daher have tips with very good conductivity and very suitable for microelectronics.

We sanitize the cable by cutting the yarns and leaving approximately one cm. cable out of tub. We pass the already sanitized cable through the cable gland of the capsule cover and move the capsule as far as possible from the tip, which is where we are going to operate.

We can already tie the knot that acts as a stop in case of pulls.

We tin the two ends of the cables, these cables are very thin and come varnished, when applying tin at VERY high temperature we will volatilize the varnish so that the tin adheres to the tip of the cable. This operation must be quick so that there is no excess heat inside the bathtub.

The robot helps us to hold the cable well. If there is no robot, you can improvise by catching the cable between one box and another, for example. The fact is that we need both hands for the soldering iron and the tin since the tin block may not be enough to tin each tip.

With the help of the other arm of the robot or with good tact, we keep the tinned cable next to the welding point of the head plate. The red wire goes to the point next to a red mark in the case of the Sennheisser. In any case, pay attention to the soldering points before desoldering the old cables.

A very quick touch of soldering iron should be enough to solder the wire to the spot. The best to cut the protruding tip is a classic nail clipper.

We proceed to solder the other wire to the other soldering point and cut ends.

We mold the tinned cable a little so that it fits well in the housing when it is closed, if necessary we move that knot so that there is not so much excess inside.

Before closing it is advisable to test that the recently operated handset rings.

We close the rim until we hear a click, mount the pad and enjoy your Senheisser MM50 as if nothing had happened to them. Or enjoy your CX300 with original iPhone microphone ...