Problem solving challenge - headphones

My headphone plug was inserted in the side of my laptop, sticking out a ways. When I got up to move from the bedroom/office/living room of my car backseat to reach the steering wheel, my knee bent the plug and I lost audio in the right headphone.

I straightened the plug. After some delicate tuning, the sound could come out the right ear if I held the plug against the audio jack in the correct position, but the connection wasn't stable.

I noticed the lower black plastic ring on the plug was loose, so that meant the plug had been pulled apart a little. I found a flat glass surface, and used it to hammer the plug back together.

Here's the method I used to hammer. I held the plug between my thumb and index finger, and then I tapped the plug against the glass, being careful to come at a right angle and not bend the plug. I tapped forcefully like I would use a hammer, making sure the plug stopped against the surface. I did not let the plug bounce or slide. It was like stabbing a target with a throwing dart.

Hammer the plug against a hard surface, like a throwing dart.

Now when I inserted the headphones into my laptop, the sound came out both ears and didn't cut out if I touched the cord. If I jiggled the plug hard or rotate it, there was some static but that seemed normal.

Yay, these headphones are very important for using libraries and universities. They do a decent job of insulating out noise, they sound great, warm my ears, and are very comfortable to wear. I got them at a discount price through SlickDeals.com, so replacing them would cost me a lot more than I paid. Sennheiser HD 419. I think the price when I bought it was around $25 discounted, $50 retail, so I'm glad I was able to save them.

Update: another snag. The headphones work on three of four devices: laptop, tablet, and phone. I use an iPod around universities at all times so I can stay free of auditory transmitted diseases. The problem is my iPod shuffle has a very tight headphone jack. When I take the headphone cord out, it catches on the jack and pulls the plug out of position. Hammering the plug on a hard surface will restore its function, but this is a poor solution to repeat every time I use the iPod. It will wear out the plug quickly and possibly break. It's also stupidly ghetto to have to bang on a table every time I pull out my headphones.

I tried to hold the plug together with adhesive: superglue. This way when I pull the plug out, it won't get stretched by the tight audio jack. Playing with superglue is always a hazardous situation. Fortunately, no accidents. I used very very little glue, a tray to catch spills, and cardboard to wipe off the excess. From gluing a handle to my homeless sign, I found out that porous surfaces like cardboard soak up superglue without smearing or sticking to anything. Good to know, makes cleanup very safe.

The plug stayed intact when I pulled out of the tight hole. So did my headphone plug. Problem solved. Except nope, using glue around conducting components is usually not the appropriate solution. My right audio wasn't working anymore. The explanation I settled on was the superglue insulated the middle portion of the plug, which delivers sound to the right headphone. Or maybe the extra thickness of the glue layer just prevented physical contact of the jack to the middle portion of the plug. I dunno.

I was getting ready to accept that I had over-fixed my headphone plug and now it was irreparably broken. But I felt if I eventually cleaned out the glue, the plug should work as before. I spend a long time removing all the glue in the crack around the black insulating ring. There was a lot more glue than was visible when I applied it. But when I got all of it out, having to pull the plug out a bit, and even bend it, sound came out of the right ear and I felt triumphant.

Now with that superglue folly amended, I needed a new solution. I went through a mental inventory of the accessories available in my car. An idea! I had an audio splitter that allows two headphones to connect to the same audio jack. Instead of making the plug stronger to survive the audio jack intercourse intact, I could keep the plug inserted into one of the splitter cable sockets, and then take the splitter in and out of my devices. The splitter plug duo is a little heavier, a bit unwieldy, but it is a functional solution!

At any point I could have stopped tinkering to avoid screwing up my headphones any further. But you know what, this was a challenge in problem-solving that I wanted. It would have been worth the loss of a valuable pair of headphones if I messed up.