Introduction: Simple 3.5 Mm Audio Switch

About: Life is too short for boring projects!

Are you tired of constantly having to crawl under your desk to unplug a speaker cable and plug in the headphone cable? And then realizing that you plugged it into microphone hole instead. This can be a real hassle but a small device could ease this process to only a flick of a switch.

This instructable will show you how to make a very cheap and super easy audio switch so that you will never have to find yourself in the cable mess again.

I made this project quite a while ago, but I still use this thing every day. This was actually my first try to make an instructable but I never got to publishing it. I found pictures from this build and decided to finish what I started.

Step 1: Stuff You Will Need

For this build you will need only 4 components:

  1. Audio cable splitter
  2. Small enclosure (Basically anything can be used. I use a small electronics project box)
  3. Audio cable (as long as you need)
  4. DPDT switch

Tools:

  • Drill and drill bits
  • Pliers
  • Solder iron
  • Wire stripper
  • Epoxy

Everything else is just a bonus

Step 2: Wiring

Start off by soldering input cable to the switch followed by both outputs.

Bear in mind that you have to solder red line to red line and left line to left.

In my case the red line was right, white was left and yellow was common.

I did not bother switching common and this seemed to work form me.

Adding bit of heat shrink tubing helped to isolate the whole thing

Step 3: Assembly

Now when wiring is done just put it all together.

Drill holes in the box. I also used dremel to smoothen the edges around the output ports.

Add fast curing epoxy to fasten the ports.

Close the compartment and you are done!

What´s left now is to connect your headphone and speaker cables.

I used double-sided tape to mount it to the base of my monitor. It has been there for over five years now serving me

This small project takes only under an hour to make, but will save a lot of time in the future.

Cheers,

Andu

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