This guide was written by a user named thousandarm and submitted to several modding / phone forums during July 2006. There was a promise given in the introduction that this guide would be completed and made into a project page. Since that has not happened and thousandarm left no contact information I would consider this abandoned. I would like to now complete this guide for another purpose, use a pc gaming headset for xbox live. Posts after this will be revisions to the original guide written by thousandarm. I will do my best to photograph the project and provide wiring diagrams.
This is an instruction page I am writing for some friends and another website. I thought that it may help some people if I pasted it here. Sorry that the pictures and formating could not be included, and sorry it is so long.
HOW TO MAKE AN ADAPTER TO USE YOUR PC HEADSETS WITH ANY PHONE (CELL PHONE), WITH A STANDARD HEADSET JACK. (In other words how to make a simple yet multi functional adapter that accepts two 3.5mm plugs and that then plugs into 2.5 in phone jacks)
Why would you want to do this?
There are many reasons to make this adapter. The adapter allows you to plug many devices into your phone and use the direct audio from your phone in many ways. The main reason for most people is to be able to connect your PC headset to your phone.
How do you connect it?
Since it is currently impossible (as far as I can tell) to find any adapter manufactured that would do the job you need to make one yourself. The adapter needs to connect the two 1/8 in plugs that are standard on PC headsets into the standard 2.5 mm jack found on most cell phones and cordless telephones handsets.
To build it first get these parts (See picture). (They are sold at Radio shack and other hardware stores and the items numbers from radio shack.)
1. One 1/8 Stereo Plug – Item # 274-869. That is the one with screw terminals, but you can also use the jack without screw terminals, that is just made for soldering).
2. Two 3 conductor stereo 1/8 (3.5mm) phone jacks – Item # 274-373 (that package comes with 2). You can also use the longer covered and protected type of jacks, but they are harder to solder.
3. One 1/8 to 3/32 adapter – Item # 274-373 (this is the 3.5 to 2.5 converter and it will have two rings on the male part.) Do not get the mono—one ring style adapter.
4. Different colored small wires (you only need a few inches of wire). You can cut and splice wire from an extra phone chord. That works great.
5. A PC headset. Logitech or any brand with the two 1/8 plugs on the end. One of those plugs is pink and the other one is usually colored black (but sometimes green).
6. A cell phone or a telephone with standard headphone jack.
The tools you need are:
1. A wire cutter (or scissors)
2. A soldering iron and electrical solder
3. Electrical tape
4. A small Phillips screwdriver (only if you got the plug with screw terminals—which I recommend.)
Procedure
1. Cut your wires:
Cut each cut about 2 inches long. You will need a total of four wires. Two of the four wires need to be the same color (this will be for the ground terminals), and the other two to be of different colors (these will be for the mic and the headphone speakers).
2. Attach wires to the 1/8 plug.
(This is a special procedure because the cell telephone jack uses one channel to carry the sound out to the headset earphones and the other channel to carry sound in from the headset microphone. Therefore the plug is wired so that these channels can be distinguished and then in step 3 these each of these 2 separate channel wires go to its own 1/8 (3.5mm) phone jack).
a. Unscrew and take apart the 1/8th plug. Do not loose the case and plastic liner.
b. Connect the two wires of the same color to the longest terminal. Either screwing or soldering. I twist the wires tightly together first so there are no frayed copper filaments sticking out. The longest terminal of the 1/8 plug is the called the ground terminal. To explain the procedure I call both the wires that have the same color the ground wires, there are two of them because the ground needs to connect to both Jacks as shown in step 3).
c. Connect the two wires you have left (they each are a different color) to the two remaining terminals which are closer to the top of the plug jack. One connects on the right terminal and the other on the left terminal. each receive one wire of a different color. (In the pictures below these are the blue and the red wires).
d. You can solder these connections (solder if you feel the screws are not enough) or you may have to solder them if you are using a non screw type of plug.
e. Put back the plastic liner around the connections you just made and screw the other parts of the jack back over the finished connections. Now you should have all of the wires coming out of the back of the 1/8 plug.
3. Attach the other end of the wires to the two 1/8 jacks.
a. Attach the ground wires to the 1/8 (3.5mm) phone jacks. These are the wires that you have two of the same color), There are two because one goes to each jack. Attach this ground near the top of each jacks. (that terminal corresponds to the connection that touches the base of the plug when the male plug is inserted into the jack.)
b. Attach the colored wires to the 1/8 (3.5mm) phone jacks. Once wire goes to each separate jack,c. Solder all of your connections
- First you need to prepare the jacks for the wires by squeezing the ends of the bottom terminals on the jacks closer together with your fingers. (You cannot squeeze together the bottom terminals if you chose to a different model jack. That is why I prefer to use the radio shack model jacks)
- String one of the singularly colored wires through the holes on the bottom of one terminal that you just squeezed together. You need to fish it through both holes. After you fish it through, you can bend and tie it around is you are skillful. Repeat the above procedure with the other color wire and the other jack. Note: By squeezing the terminals and putting the wire through the holes you connecting the “right and left” channel of on each jack you enable the equipment to work optimally. Both ears of your headset will have the sound and the mic from your pc headset can deliver its full signal into the telephone or cell phone. (so if you are using a different style of jacks in this step you need figure out how to string the wire to connect both right and left terminals and then solder them).
4. Test for the audio out – The moment of truth!!!!
Now that everything is wired. You can test which jack that you made is the audio out and which is the mic in. After you figure out which is which you label these jacks so you always know which plug from the headset goes into which jack.
a. Plug the 1/8 male plug into the One 1/8 to 3/32 adapter and plug that adapter into a standard cordless telephone or cell phone headset input jack.
b. Plug the black (or green) 1/8 plug your headset into one of the 1/8 (3.5mm) phone jacks that you just wired. (do not use the pink plug).
c. Put the head set on and hit talk on the phone, or if you are using the cell phone either call you voice mail or do something that produces sound.
e. Either you will hear some of the sound/dial tone or you will not. If you hear a dial tone or your cell phone then you know that that jack you are plugged into is the audio out (for the sound that goes to your ears.)
f. If you heard nothing in step e, then take the black (or green) headset plug out and plug it into the other 1/8 (3.5mm) phone jacks that you made. You should hear the dial tone/sound or voice mail. Whichever jack that did not produce sound in the head set is for the mic. You should label the jacks, “ear and mic” so you can remember which one correspond to the mic (pink) and which to the earphones (black-or-green). You can see in the picture that I wrap colored tape around the jacks. It would ideal if you used pink and green colors for this is becoming the standardized colors. Pink for mic and green for audio out.
g. In this test \Did you notice how great the sound quality was? It should have been in both ears of the headset, loud and clear
5. Finishing up
a. Wrap the jacks in electrical tape so that the connections are not exposed.
b. Attach the finished jacks to the plug using tape.
c. As described above use colored tape or a pen to label your nifty adapter for ease of use.
d. Plug into your phone and enjoy.
Other benefits of this jack.
Since you can connect any speaker or microphone that has a 1/8 plug into this jack, you can connect most anything to your telephone or cell phone. This enables you to do many things such as running a line into your computer terminals. Some of the things you can do are.
- Use your PC as a telephone recording device. I’ve done this using the adapter to connect the cell or cordless telephone to the pc. I use a standard wire with 1/8 stereo plugs to connect the audio line out from the adapter to the audio line into the computer. That is in 1/8 input jack is usually colored blue on the back of the computer. Download software or use any software that records sound. Audacity is a great free ware recording program that works on PCs.
- Turn your PC into a speaker phone that works better than most standard speaker phones. Similar to the above you connect the audio out to your PC. Then from the mic out of the adapter you can connect any pc mic that you place on your desk in front of you. (Or you can just use your headset mic that goes closer to your moth and away from your computer). Unlike most speaker phone the conversation is not cut off at all you can talk and hear the other party at the same time
- Use the adapter to connect your phone to any mixer or PA equipment or stereo.
