Problem with 660 audio connection

[Wrinkly]

Having just fitted my 660 to my bike everything is working ok,but I wanted to keep my in helmet earphones rather than go down the bluetooth route.

I rewired my headphones onto a male audio jack using some twin-core audio cable which has a red wire and a black wire.
I soldered the red wire to the sleeve and the black wire to the ring connector leaving the tip connector unused,I then plugged it into the garmin audio output and it works perfect.

But seeing as the earphone cable is only 4" long i need to extend it,so I made an extension with a female socket at one end to plug into the speakers and a male jack at the other end to plug into the garmin audio output using the same principle as the headphones,i.e red wire to the sleeve and black wire to the ring.

Unfortunately there is now no output at the speakers,I have tried different connectors but no joy.

Any help or advice much appreciated,

Steve

 

[Deleted account 210609001]

I suspect you'll need to connect the third connector. There are three sections to the male audio jack - an earth, a left earphone and a right earphone. For each speaker/earphone, there are two wires - one for the positive, one for the earth. So connections to the jack should be one wire to each of the right and left speakers, and two wires connected to the earth.

At least, I think that's how it works. Unfortunately, I don't know which bit of the jack plug is which.

At the risk of sounding defeatist, unless you have high-tech moulded earphones, it might just be better to buy some earphones with the plug already attached. It's really fiddly doing soldering in tiny little wires.

Also, if you think you've got the connections right, try the earphones on another radio or iPod or something. I seem to recall my Zumo (550) only gives oudio output at all when it is in a powered mount, and not when it's just charging via the USB. So if you're testing it without the Zumo in a mount, it won't be sending any sound out anyway.

 

[Engineer]

Having just fitted my 660 to my bike everything is working ok,but I wanted to keep my in helmet earphones rather than go down the bluetooth route.

I rewired my headphones onto a male audio jack using some twin-core audio cable which has a red wire and a black wire.
I soldered the red wire to the sleeve and the black wire to the ring connector leaving the tip connector unused,I then plugged it into the garmin audio output and it works perfect.

But seeing as the earphone cable is only 4" long i need to extend it,so I made an extension with a female socket at one end to plug into the speakers and a male jack at the other end to plug into the garmin audio output using the same principle as the headphones,i.e red wire to the sleeve and black wire to the ring.

Unfortunately there is now no output at the speakers,I have tried different connectors but no joy.

Any help or advice much appreciated,

Steve

Audio cable is normally of the stereo type, two inner conductors and a screen - the screen needs to be connected as it is the return path for both the inner wires.

I do not know the Garmin 660, so it is diffcult for me to work out what connections you should make.

 

[rce]

As everyone else has said normally headphones would be three wire, the screen is the return and is common to both speakers, the red and black are left and right channels, eg red goes to one speaker, black to the other.

If your headphones are mono then you would only have two wires, often this would be one core and a screen.

The 3.5mm plug sounds like it is a stereo one (which is what I would expect).

For stereo speakers the screen is fixed to the tongue that sticks out back, and usually has a crimp section and a hole for soldering a wire, best way to do this is to strip the outer sheath and form some of the screen into a make shift wire, this can be soldered to the tongue and lightly crimped (just close up with pliers).

On a stereo plug you will have two tangs, one central and one slightly off centre, the red goes to the centre, the black to the outer.

 

[Wrinkly]

Many thanks folks,now sorted

Steve