Does anyone have any tips on how to fix wobbly 3.5mm or 6.3mm jacks (without unsoldering them)? (Wobbly in the sense of you only get a connection if you move the plug around or pull it out a bit.)
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Sure, you can reach in with a tiny tool of some kind and bend the contacts inwards so they press harder on the jack.
Bend contacts, or buy better quality jacks and replace. If the whole thing is wobbly, star washers in front and behind the main panel/fascia will keep it in place for years (mainly applies to guitars).
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Related to this, anyone have suggestions on keeping Instruo jacks tight? They don’t have the same kind of knut covers that most modules come with so standard tools don’t seem to apply here.
Thank you for your tips @Gregg and @zbs.
I fumbled around with a long needle and managed to fix one jack (on a synth). An illuminated magnifying glass would have been helpful. I used my iPhone’s magnifying function instead.
The other jack (on a mixer) I fixed by resoldering all pins.
What was helpful was a schematic of a stereo jack which made it easier to guess what to bend where:
Also this helped: https://www.cuidevices.com/blog/understanding-audio-jack-switches-and-schematics
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One thought to consider/test before bending jacks is that sometimes it’s the connector on the cable that can have a dimension out of spec.
For example, I’ve got some Seismic Audio 1/4" TRS patch bay cables with the moulded plastic ends. They work perfectly when used in the front of my patchbays but they make intermittent connection when used in the jacks of my brand new Motu interface. All of the other cables/connectors I tried worked, including the Seismic metal type, Neutrik, Amphenol, etc.
Just something to think about before prying any metal or requesting that RMA.
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