I am designing a product where a removable accessory part should be connected while allowing rotation – boom microphone connected to a headset – you can plug and unplug and it should be possible to move with boom mic up and down as needed by the user.
The question is if a standard 3.5mm audio jack is a suitable connector for this purpose. I am afraid that it might lose contact after some time of use.
Would you accept using jack or recommend anything else?
Thanks
Electronic – Is 3.5mm audio jack suitable for rotating connection
audioconnector
Related Solutions
The the problem is probably the standard 3.5mm jack. Smart phones use four pole 3.5mm jacks to add a mic to a headset. There are two configurations used but the most common (read what Apple pushes) is to have the sleeve as mic in, ground on the adjacent ring, right audio on the next ring then left on the tip.
I know that most recent Samsung phones reverse ground and mic in. I actually built a small crossover cable to get around this issue.
According to this page the mic should work if the resistance is about 2.2k ohms.
I only assume this works based on the success of using my crossover cable to use a headset/mic with button designed for iPhone on my Galaxy S.
Apparently you have a audio signal with 3.3 Volt peak to peak amplitude and want to couple that into a "microphone" input of some other audio device. Microphone inputs are meant to take the very small signals produced by microphones. These are often 1 mV or less, with peaks maybe a few mV in normal operation, although this depends a lot on the microphone.
For starters, you probably want to attenuate your input signal by at least 1000 in voltage. That may still be a bit high, but most microphone inputs can probably handle that. You will have to experiment. Maybe you need a attenuation of 3000 or 5000 so that you set the volume control near the middle of its range when listening. A simple start would be:
That will attenuate by about 2000 in voltage. Note the capacitor to AC couple the signal, which removes the DC bias of the input signal.
Best Answer
Don't think so. The forces, and the angles of the forces, are designed for medium-to-high contact pressure at a point, not what you want in a rotating contact. Also, the plating probably will not hold up. Contact lubricant, such as what is used in slip-ring connections and potentiometer wipers, will help. But before I'd commit to it, I'd rig up a mechanical gadget to exercise the mechanism around the clock and get some data.