Tag Archives: electronics

Rewiring Apple Speakers

Parts needed:

1 x Standard stereo Y cable with a standard mini plug attached.
1 x Pair of wirecutters/strippers
1 x Roll of electrical tape

The operation:

  1. Using the wirecutters, remove the Apple junction and all cabling behind it, including the Apple mini-plug. Please don’t worry, this is safe.
  2. Strip about 1 inch of insulation from each cable that remains attached to the Apple Pro Speakers. Do the same to the stereo Y cable we purchased.
  3. Inside each cable, one will notice a pair of wires. Strip about 1/2 inch of insulation from each wire. Do the same to the stereo Y cable.
  4. Join each wire from the Apple Pro Speaker stereo pair to it’s compliment on the stereo Y cable. Anyone thathas done wiring of a home stereo system will have no problem recognizing what to do from here on out.
  5. Tape of each join securly, or solder if one likes and then tape up each joint. Also, heat sealing joiners can be used as well. I used electrical tape myself, but I may go back and get heat seals as they look nicer.
  6. Insert stereo mini plug into the audio output of choice an enjoy!

The right speaker has: shielding on the outside, a layer of foil, a brown wire, a yellow wire.

The left speaker has: shielding on the outside, a layer of foil, a blue wire, a white wire.

  • Pull the foil away and when connecting these wires MAKE SURE THEY DO NOT TOUCH WIRES THAT THEY ARE NOT PURPOSELY ATTACHED TO.
  • Get a mini or headphones connector where the left and right wires are easily stripped and separated. I used one where the right wire is clearly red and the left is clearly white and both wires have shielding.
  • Make sure the stripped wires are stripped at least an inch above the shielding so there is less opportunity to touch.
  • Twist the shielding of all wires together and cover with electrical tape.
  • Twist the Brown and the Blue wires from the two speakers together and cover with electrical tape
  • Twist the white wire from the Apple Pro speaker together with the left (in my case white) wire connected to the mini connector, cover with electrical tape.
  • Twist the Yellow wire from the Apple Pro speaker together with the right (in my case red) wire connected to the mini connector, cover with electrical tape.
  • The blue and brown wires, now connected, need to be connected to the shielding wire.

[The vacuum tube is back.][1] Interestingly, vacuum tubes offer two advantages over their successor the transistor: they are faster, because electrons move more quickly in a vacuum rather than through a solid, and they are more resistant to external radiation.

But can you still get that humming overtone in guitar amps?

[1]: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/05/return-of-the-vacuum-tube.html

Learn Electronics

A recent [post on Slashdot][post] asked the community what they would recommend for someone with only the most basic understanding of electronics who wanted to teach themselves the basics. There were two recommendations that looked interesting: [Getting Started with Electronics][mimms] and [The Art of Electronics][aoe]. Both are books available for purchase. But surely there are on-line, and free, resources as well? E-mail suggestions are welcome. (I’ve got big plans for Lily and a soldering gun at some point in her childhood.)

[post]: http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/04/12/2033210/Where-To-Start-In-DIY-Electronics
[mimms]: http://www.forrestmims.com/
[aoe]: http://frank.harvard.edu/aoe/