sleemanj
7th March 2010, 18:24
I find earing normal "earbud" (aka canalphone, in ear headphones, etc) under a helmet to be pretty uncomfortable, the bulk of the "driver" (speaker to we lay folk) tends to push against your ear and the helmet, and well, after about an hour, I find it unbearable.
Last night I had a brainwave, I converted the earbuds into "acoustic tube" ear plugs, all up for less than $5 (not including the earbuds, since I already had them, but you could get some for a couple bucks on TradeMe if you don't). Effectively we are making a stethoscope out of a pair of earplugs, some tube and a normal "earbud" type headset.
Everything you can get from Bunnings!
You will need:
some plain old squishy foam earplugs, I got 3M ones, they are like 70c a pair, I got a bunch to experiment with.
some 3mm diameter pvc tube, this is in the gardening aisle at Bunnings with the watering stuff, 60c a meter, before I got to bunnings I had bought some from supercheap which was more 10x more expensive but it is slightly thinner, but I tried bunnings stuff and it's just fine, I'll try the supercheap stuff too sometime since I paid them $12 for it.
and also from he gardening aisle two "elbow barbed 4mm" fittings made by NETA (maybe they had 3mm, but I jut grabbed these), they are something like 60c each
Making the things couldn't be easier, grab an old nail, or little drill bit or something, and a pair of pliers. Hold the nail in the pliers and heat it up, I used the gas hobbs, maybe you have something flasher. When you think it's hot enough, poke a hole through each of your 70c earplugs.
Take the elbows you bought and stuff one end in the earplugs.
Cut your pipe into a couple of, say, 50cm lengths, affix each pipe to the other end of an elbow.
Now, all you have to do it attach the other end of each pipe to your ear buds somehow. Here's how I did it...
My earbuds came with 3 different sized silicone "tips". I took the medium sized tips and I turned them "inside out" so there is a "cup" end and a "pipe" end, your bunnings 3mm tube fits perfectly into the pipe end, and the cup end mates perfectly with the large size tips wit a bit of superglue to keep them togethor. The large tips then fit onto the buds like normal.
That's it, job done. How do they work? Not bad. I did about an hour's ride today and they were quite comfortable, wind noise was quite reduced, I had the volume at about 3/4 on the mp3 player on the open road, less in town. You do get a bit of noise from the tube rubbing against your jacket, I might try shorter tubes, maybe even to just below the helmet.
Future ideas:
maybe the elbows are not necessary, just tubes straight into the earplugs.
maybe the hole in the plugs doesn' need to go all the way through, leaving a "cap" might reduce he remaining wind noise some more
shorter tubes
different shapes/types of earplug
Last night I had a brainwave, I converted the earbuds into "acoustic tube" ear plugs, all up for less than $5 (not including the earbuds, since I already had them, but you could get some for a couple bucks on TradeMe if you don't). Effectively we are making a stethoscope out of a pair of earplugs, some tube and a normal "earbud" type headset.
Everything you can get from Bunnings!
You will need:
some plain old squishy foam earplugs, I got 3M ones, they are like 70c a pair, I got a bunch to experiment with.
some 3mm diameter pvc tube, this is in the gardening aisle at Bunnings with the watering stuff, 60c a meter, before I got to bunnings I had bought some from supercheap which was more 10x more expensive but it is slightly thinner, but I tried bunnings stuff and it's just fine, I'll try the supercheap stuff too sometime since I paid them $12 for it.
and also from he gardening aisle two "elbow barbed 4mm" fittings made by NETA (maybe they had 3mm, but I jut grabbed these), they are something like 60c each
Making the things couldn't be easier, grab an old nail, or little drill bit or something, and a pair of pliers. Hold the nail in the pliers and heat it up, I used the gas hobbs, maybe you have something flasher. When you think it's hot enough, poke a hole through each of your 70c earplugs.
Take the elbows you bought and stuff one end in the earplugs.
Cut your pipe into a couple of, say, 50cm lengths, affix each pipe to the other end of an elbow.
Now, all you have to do it attach the other end of each pipe to your ear buds somehow. Here's how I did it...
My earbuds came with 3 different sized silicone "tips". I took the medium sized tips and I turned them "inside out" so there is a "cup" end and a "pipe" end, your bunnings 3mm tube fits perfectly into the pipe end, and the cup end mates perfectly with the large size tips wit a bit of superglue to keep them togethor. The large tips then fit onto the buds like normal.
That's it, job done. How do they work? Not bad. I did about an hour's ride today and they were quite comfortable, wind noise was quite reduced, I had the volume at about 3/4 on the mp3 player on the open road, less in town. You do get a bit of noise from the tube rubbing against your jacket, I might try shorter tubes, maybe even to just below the helmet.
Future ideas:
maybe the elbows are not necessary, just tubes straight into the earplugs.
maybe the hole in the plugs doesn' need to go all the way through, leaving a "cap" might reduce he remaining wind noise some more
shorter tubes
different shapes/types of earplug