Wanderer
Well-known member
I've never found a good mix of speakers and ear protection for MC commo, so after much obsessing I finally bit the bullet and chopped up my MotoComm to see what I could do. I realized I could splice in a 3.5mm (1/8) female headphone jack where the speakers used to be and use some earbuds. With a bit of engineerig I could have both the mic and be able to hear my pillion, plus ear protection.
First:
The intact headset. It has these cool blade style quick connects, too bad I couldn't use them somehow.
These came from radio Shack, 5 bucks a pair. The quality is pretty decent. I don't like that the outer body has plastic threads. I didnt see another way to make these but I dont know how much abuse they'll take. They take a good bit of force to insert the male side of the headphones. I'll have to be careful.
Bye Bye Speakers. The cords were a shielded positive lead wrapped in the ground lead. The upper one is before I stripped the insulation off.
I realized shortly after pairing the leads up and soldering them to the terminals that I had made them into mono sound. Further inspection of the other jack revealed that the stress relief tang is actually the ground, allowing each speaker to have its own hot lead. Oops. I'm not an audiophile anyway. So attach the leads to the tabs on the seperated jack and heres the result, soldered, double shrinkwrapped and taped:
I wanted the jack to be secure and also have a place to secure the extra earbud cord so I chose to loop the jack back toward the conndector for the Junction box. To keep it from getting kinked and brekaing the fragile wires I shrink wrapped a section of paired 18g wire to the cord to give it a backbone.
Secured back on itself, it gave me a nice loop to anchor a small string to and attach that to the chinstrap rivet to prevent it from being pulled out of my helmet.
Here is the finished product.
This is how it worked for me. every helmet is different, and every head. I'd seriously plan this out for your helmet and noggin prior to the first wire snip.
The cord is rather bulky and it took some creative and specific placement to get it comfortable. I didn't have to modify anything in the helmet, but I'd be prepared to cut a small notch/tunnel if need be.
First:
The intact headset. It has these cool blade style quick connects, too bad I couldn't use them somehow.
These came from radio Shack, 5 bucks a pair. The quality is pretty decent. I don't like that the outer body has plastic threads. I didnt see another way to make these but I dont know how much abuse they'll take. They take a good bit of force to insert the male side of the headphones. I'll have to be careful.
Bye Bye Speakers. The cords were a shielded positive lead wrapped in the ground lead. The upper one is before I stripped the insulation off.
I realized shortly after pairing the leads up and soldering them to the terminals that I had made them into mono sound. Further inspection of the other jack revealed that the stress relief tang is actually the ground, allowing each speaker to have its own hot lead. Oops. I'm not an audiophile anyway. So attach the leads to the tabs on the seperated jack and heres the result, soldered, double shrinkwrapped and taped:
I wanted the jack to be secure and also have a place to secure the extra earbud cord so I chose to loop the jack back toward the conndector for the Junction box. To keep it from getting kinked and brekaing the fragile wires I shrink wrapped a section of paired 18g wire to the cord to give it a backbone.
Secured back on itself, it gave me a nice loop to anchor a small string to and attach that to the chinstrap rivet to prevent it from being pulled out of my helmet.
Here is the finished product.
This is how it worked for me. every helmet is different, and every head. I'd seriously plan this out for your helmet and noggin prior to the first wire snip.
The cord is rather bulky and it took some creative and specific placement to get it comfortable. I didn't have to modify anything in the helmet, but I'd be prepared to cut a small notch/tunnel if need be.