Beats by Jose and Marc

This is a DIY for your very own headphones.

-3.5 mm stereo jack

-28 AWG wire

-8 neodymium magnets

-2 foam cups

-Electrical tape

-Sandpaper

You need to sand the ends of the wires because the electric current needs to flow through the wire, and copper is a conductor of electricity. You need to coil wire because the voice coil acts as the temporary magnet and the magnet acts as the permanent magnet. The repelling of their magnetic fields causes the voice coil to vibrate, in which vibrations produce sound waves in the air. We chose 40 coils because we tested different amounts of coils, from 30 to 50, and found that 40 coils had the best quality and was the loudest. An alternating current is needed in a speaker because it causes a polar orientation, which allows the electromagnet to repel and attract to the permanent magnet. This makes the vibration.

A permanent magnet is needed because it allows the temporary magnet (the voice coil) to move back and forth using magnetism. This also allows other components in the speaker to move. The number magnets we chose changed the quality in the music. At first, we had only 4 magnets. 2 for each headphone. But then we decided to add one more to each headphone. That resulted in a total of 6 magnets. We tried on the headphones, and the quality became a lot better. We thought that if we added more magnets, the quality would become better, so we added 2 more, resulting in a total of 8 magnets. This gave the sound better quality, so we decided to stay with 8 magnets. The diaphragm material we chose was the foam cup. At first we tried the plastic cup. The music was audible, but not all components in the song were audible. So we decided to use the paper cup next. All components in the song were audible, but the quality was quite low. So we tried out the last material, the foam cup. The foam cup had the best sound loudness and clarity. All components in the song were audible, and they sounded better than how they did in the paper cup. That is how we chose the diaphragm material.

You connect the wires to the terminals by tying 2 of the copper ends of the wire together, each copper end of each foam cup. The other 2 copper ends from the wires are connected to the terminals of the aux plug, 1 wire in each of the 2 holes. You need to connect them to the terminals because the terminals are what connect your headphones to the device. The wires need to be sanded because when the wire is sanded, it removes the red covering. The red covering is an insulator. It doesn’t carry the electricity, or the waves in this case. When the insulator is removed, it allows the waves to enter the wire. Sound waves are produced by the vibrations from the voice coil. The alternating current is important because it allows the voice coil to attract and repel. The alternating current constantly switches the magnetic forces between the voice coil and the magnet. When the coil moves, it pushes and pulls the cone. This vibrates the air in front of the speaker, creating sound waves.

If you don’t hear sound, try adjusting the position of the magnet or the wires. Make sure the wires are around the magnet itself and no other coils are off or tangled. You can also try adding more magnets or coils, because that will strengthen the magnetic fields and make better sound quality.

Procedure:

1.Cut 5 ft of wire(about 3 arm lengths)

2.Sand about 15 cm of both ends of the wire

3.Begin coiling the wire around a pencil about 40 times

4.Make sure that the coils aren’t spread apart and tightly compact

5.Once done with that, remove the coil off of the pencil and put it aside for now

6.Get the aux plug and twist the plastic part off of the plug

7.Tie both ends of the wire to the two terminals of the aux plug

8.Grab your magnets and place one on the bottom of the outside of the cup and place the others on the inside. Make sure the inside magnets are attracted to the outside magnet

9.Place the circular part of the wire onto the magnet. Make sure the magnets are in the middle

10.Place tape onto the wire and the magnet to keep it down

11.Plug the aux cord into any desired device with an aux plug hole

12.Play the music or any sound on the device and test whether the headphones work or not(adjusting the wires may help if it doesn’t work)