Holding a broken headphone plug and wondering where the end is? Took your earbuds out of your tablet or smartphone too quickly to find out what’s left a little behind?
Unfortunately, headphone jacks are not designed for regular and repeated insertion and removal. If part of your headphone jack is stuck in your phone, tablet, or even MP3 player, you will need to remove it before you can use any spare headphones.
These six methods should help you recover the lost part.
6 Ways to Remove a Broken Headphone Jack
All too often, the end of a broken headphone jack gets stuck in your phone or tablet. It turns out that these little metal cylinders are weak where the (usually) black plastic rings appear all the way down. This is the same for any wired headphones, whether you have them in your ears, on your ears, or over your head.
Deletion is a problem, but fortunately, several solutions have been found to remove garbage:
- Inside Biro.
- Superglue the rest of the connector.
- Curved point drawing
- Toothpick with hot glue.
- Hot clip.
- A special tool called the GripStick.
When removing a broken component, make sure you hold the device with the headphone jack facing down. Gravity always helps!
Also, before looking at these methods in more detail, please note that the following steps are performed solely at your own risk . Though it’s less invasive than headphone repair Wrong movement may break your phone or tablet completely.
1. Use inside the biro
Here’s a fun fact: the pipe running up the inside of your bio (like the Bic or Paper Mate) is almost exactly the same diameter as the headphone jack. With a little effort and adjustment, this can be used to remove a broken connector from your device.
To do this, remove the inner tube. It’s a piece with ink in it, and is almost always removed by pulling the pen’s nib. At the bottom of the tube, opposite the tip, you should find that there is no ink. You can use this piece of tubing to remove a broken cork. Simply insert it firmly into the headphone jack and remove. The tube should grab the broken part and pull it out.
If this doesn’t work the first time, you have several options. First, slightly widen the tube with a nail to ensure a snug fit on the cork. Alternatively, you can quickly heat the end of the tube to soften it and then insert it into the socket. Leave it for a moment, then retire.
Also, if you have a very steady hand, try a very small amount of hot glue or superglue on the end of the tube before inserting. The video above demonstrates a similar approach using chewing gum.
Finally, you can skip some pressure. If you can, cut the tubing two inches long (or find something similar in size, like tubing from a lubricating oil can), then plug it into the headphone jack. Then tap it with something hard (such as shoes or slippers) to make sure the lost part is pinched. When you’re happy that the handset is holding it, take it off the phone.
2. Superglue the other end of the fork
If the pen cartridge doesn’t work or you prefer a different approach, then superglue might be the answer. You probably know that when using superglue, never bond the two surfaces immediately after application. Instead, you wait for them to dry out a bit and become sticky. This stickiness is the key to removing the broken part in this scenario.
