I've cut the isolated band of my earphones

[Femme_physics]

So I've cut the isolated band of my earphones to see what's inside (my cheap earphones quit working). I expected to see copper. And I have. But, there is also a red wire and a blue wire amongst the copper. At they dyed copper, or a different metal?

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4003/coppern.jpg

 

[I like Serena]

Hey Fp!

Did you already try to see what's inside the red or blue wire?
Perhaps try to scrape off some of the red?

 

[Femme_physics]

Oh, hehe...I didn't know it's 'scrapeable" ... they all appear to be copper! Thanks

 

[I like Serena]

Well, are they scrapeable?

I'd expect the red wire to be copper with red plastic around it for insulation.
Btw, red is the color code for plus, and blue is the color code for minus.

 

[turbo]

At very low voltages, insulation doesn't have to be too thick. Perhaps the wires were lightly shellacked and the shellac was dyed to give the assemblers color-codes to work with. If you scrape the wires with a sharp blade, there's probably copper under that coloring.

 

[Ouabache]

Hi FP! (לְשָׁנָה טוֹבָה)
I suspect the colored insulation you are seeing is a thin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enameled_wire" coating.
A common color scheme used on stereo headphones is red = + for chan_1 (e.g. left side), green = + for chan_2(e.g. right side), with copper wire (often coated with clear enamel for added protection from shorting) for (-) common ground.

You can easily repair your stereo headphones using a low wattage soldering iron. I have done this on a few headphones. You could scratch away the coating on the multi-stranded enamel coated wires, but they are very fragile and easily break. I found you can melt the enamel with the iron while tinning the underlying copper with solder. Then, if you use a hands-free soldering stand, you can keep the two adjoining wires close to one another as you solder them together. If you slip on some heat shrink tubing before soldering and careful placement of electrical tape, then voilà back in business.