Bit of a dilemma this one . .

Tracey who I work with brought in her daughters iPad, who unfortunately had somehow broke her earphone’s 3.5mm jack, leaving it firmly stuck inside the iPad headphone jack socket.

They had spent the previous evening trying to remove it with everything from a screwdriver to a kitchen knife, with no success, so it was looking like they’d have to pay a visit to the Apple Store to get it repaired.

Now that’s where I come in . .  Tracey was telling me about it at work and I suggested before she took it in, she let me have a look at it, as I’m one of those types who if given an IT repair/fix problem, will endeavour to find a solution.

So after doing a bit of googling I came across various methods that people have used for removing broken jacks from iPads, the top 3 that seem to work for people are these

1. Using a Q-tip/Earbud to wriggle it around the outside of the broken jack and then quickly and firmly pull it out, this worked for some people, but it all depends on how far you can work the q-tip over and down the jack.
2. Using thin nosed tweezers, but again this only works if there’s enough of the jack protruding to get a grip on, if there is again its a case of a quick firm pull to get it out .
3. Super glue and a paper clip, now this just involves putting a small blob of super glue onto the tip of a paper clip and holding it against  the top of the jack long enough and steady enough for it to set and grip the top of the jack securely.

Sadly none of these techniques worked for me, so me being me decided to mix it up a little and combine 2 of the techniques into one of my own, these being No.1 and No.3

So here’s what to do, get your Q-Tip and first work it over the end of the jack so you know that it will fit it properly, once you’ve done this, remove it from the jack, now get some super glue and gently place the q-tip over the nozzle of the Super glue and squeeze the glue ever so gently to allow a drop or 2 to enter the inside of the q-tip.

Now remove the super glue nozzle and then gently tap the Q-tip on to a piece of paper to allow surplus glue to drain from the q-tip, probably 2-3 taps will suffice, now quickly push the q-tip over the broken jack and twist around a couple of time to make sure that it does not stick to the inside of the earphone socket, hopefully while doing this the q-tip is attaching itself with the aid of the glue to the broken jack.

Once your satisfied that it isn’t going to stick to the inside of the earphone jack, hold the q-tip steady for about 15-20 seconds to make sure that the q-tip has bonded to the jack, then quickly and firmly pull/jerk the q-tip out and if all’s worked according to plan you should now have the broken jack stuck in the end of your q-tip and an earphone jack that can now be used once more>