the problem:

i just got me an ipod, and the thing is the ****, the headphones that came with were beautiful, but merely okay sound quality (great for ear-buds though) i have a great pair of wraparound Philips headphones with some great sound qualitly (though they're nothing compared to my 60 dollar noise cancelling over ear phillips) the thing is, they look fugly with an ipod, so the goal is to mod em to match my shiny no tune box

the plan:

-make a custom male stereo jack that is small, and white, i'm thinking using a combination of metal tubing, a custom made plastic or wood peice, and some rubber tubing, all coated in white heatshrink, i have teeny tiny bare jack's without any covering

-dye the cord light grey, i think vinyl dye could work for this, has anyone used this on wire and seen how it flexes, and how easily it scratches off? any other idea's would be cool

-paint the rest of the headphones a mix of white, light grey, and possibly crome

any ideas or comment?
and would vinyl dye work well for this?

i'll post progress as progress is made

First off, I would NOT touch the jack. Any impurities in the solder connections will rid your headphones off most bass and make them sound muddy. Gotta be hot and quick. When I do surface mount work, I use a 100watt soldering iron with a needle as a tip. Always remember-HOT and QUICK! Feel free to try it, but just a warning.

I'm also a little worried about the idea of putting vinyl dye on a flexible surface, but I'm sure it should hold up as long as you don't really TRY to get it off. I'm sure it will hold up on the surface of the headphones. Chrome spray pint is a bitch. Don't use it in cold weather or it will look like sh!t.

Back to the jack- you could use a small piece of tubing, and where the wire comes in, you could use silicone grease, let it sit for a few minutes, and round it with your fingers into a "dome". See my diagram. Silicone grease is shown as "Sil Grease"

Attached Thumbnails

 

a lil side topic about earphones....

If you're looking for a good set for your iPod and are willing to put a lil extra $$ into them, I would look into the Shure e2 Earphones...only downfall is they don't come in the iPod's sexy white color.

I agree that the earphones that came with the iPod aren't "great" but recently I've grown attached.

Now I constantly have my earphones on me, but I Run them down my back, instead of in the front. And when I dont use them, I just let them hang around my neck instead of packing them away. Easy access baby

yeah, well as for the custom jack thing, i'm not worried about sound because i have already soldered them to a new jack cause the first one broke.

as for the ipod hearphones, yeah, i would have kept usin em, except they broke.

as for the jack hawkye, the layout is a hell of a lot samller than that, i'll post a diagram in a min, the sil. grease idea is interesting, but after looking at the ipod heaphones in greater detail, the rubber peice over the jack doesnt have a little hump there, its just kinda gets smaller, and the rubber chock absorber is attatched to the wire so it doesnt go in backwards (if that makes any sense)

so, i have most of the planning done for the jack, all i need is a good material for the shock absorber thing, i need some thick, super tiny rubber tubing or something, i couldnt find anything at the hardware store or our local junk store so i'm our of ideas, i may take some off some other headphones i might find....
any ideas there would be good

yeah, i'll post a diagram in a sec

heres what i'm talking about, as you can see there isnt too much room , my bigest fear is if the heatshrink will shrick enough, its rather big, and need to get rather samll in order to go under the rubber tubing, if that doesnt work, i can just stop the heatshrink before the end of the tubing and have the tubing stick out (and have it light grey or somehting) i'm gonna try soem vinyl dye if i can get my hand on some on some spare wire, see how it goes

almost forgot

Attached Thumbnails

 

Looking good. Hope it works out. As long as those solder joints are nice and clean, you should be in good shape. Only crazy people like me will notice a difference in audio. Also considering you are probably using mp3's, the audo quality isn't that good anyway.


Good luck.

i've done some practice playing with heatshrink, and have made one sample, (i have a pic, but cant load it till this weekend)

the vinyl dye is PERFECT, while yes it does come off you you scratch at the wire and take off some fo the rubber, it is completely flexible and durable.

i now am looking at a plan for the headphones themself (see image)

i found white vinyl dye no problemo, however the light ipod grey is very hard to find, cause most car interiors arent really light grey, BUT i think i found some for 9 bucks, rather expensive the thing is i'm not sure exactly what color it is. It says white, however i think its actually light grey because you dont want a pure white car interior usually, (the stuff i found is a good 7 years old and made for old vinyl furniture) and their color chart also has a "sail white" which is much lighter,

blah blah blah

i'm not sure if i want to spend 10 bucks getting some paint online for a color i'm not sure is really what i want, look at the paint layout i did and tell me if you think it'd be worth it,

even though the orig. ipod wires and the wires for the remote are grey, white will look fine (the dock connector wire is actually white, it tok me a good week to notice it was different with the two right next to each other)

here

Attached Thumbnails

 

Wow that looks nice! Glad to hear that the vinyl dye is working out.

Can't wait to see that connector.

i'll see if i can get a pic done using the school digi cam

well, i officially suck at using spray paint... i managed to use way too much, and leak through the masking tape...

the good part about vinyl dye is that it bonds to the surface.
the bad part about vinyl dye is that it bonds to the surface.

either way, they are OKAY, but kinda screwed up, i'm laying low on painting from now on, didn't get as far as i was planning anywho

i've left the wire black for now, i can always paint it later, the jack is "done" but i used the heat shrink multiple times for practice and got it down snuff, but when i went to do it for real, it shrunk funny, i redid it once, but have been too lazy to redo it again, i'll probly get it tommorow..... and i'll have pics on sunday
as for how the sound quality tuned out, it got better

You gotta be casreful when spraying small objects, most people tend to put too much on. Always spray farther than your object when making a pass with the can.

yeah, i know, i'm so godamned impatient though, so i'm liek, its not covered yet, add more, add more, ad more, and tthe next thing i know is that i got drips

i'll be uploading the pics momentarily

Cant wait to see the pics.
Btw, where did you get your ipod?

i dunno where i got it, it was a gift, pics in 3 seconds i swear

heres my first practice jack, i think it was also one of my best, and its next to the origional ipod headphones

Attached Thumbnails

 

heres the the headphones

Attached Thumbnails

 

and heres a close up of the jakc, i think i'm gonna redo it, i'm not so happy with it (it shrunk funny) and i'll probly paint it w/ the vinyl dye so that it loses it's gloss