Electronic – What material are the thin, colored wires in the headphone cable

wire

My broken headphones have different colored wires. Are the red, green and blue wires all copper? The colored wire is wrapped around a white thread.

Best Answer

Yes, all of the conductive stuff inside the cable is copper. However, the copper wires are coated with a very thin insulating layer called enamel.

Headphone wire

The enamel can sometimes be removed by rubbing molten solder on it.

Tinning enamelled wire

If this doesn't work, then you might have some luck rubbing some fine emery paper on it.

sanding enamelled wire

As you can see, you don't need to clean your fingernails before you do this.

But one of the problems with headphone cable specifically is that it often contains some thread to reinforce it.

Headphone cables with thread

The thread makes soldering the cable pretty difficult. Usually, if I find threads in my cable, I just throw it away.