Fixing my headset and looking for opinions

[Arphahat]

So, my cleaning lady ripped the cord from the base of my Sennheiser PC 350 headset. The headphones still worked, but I discovered that the mic didn't work at all.

I did some checking around and the Sennheiser warranty, as well as any credit card warranty, do not cover accidental damage. So, my choices are make the cleaning lady pay for it, send it in to have it fixed for $75 or fix it myself.

Well, the cleaning lady is a charity case, and it was actually one of the people she employs that broke it, so even though I would be "right" in making her pay, I don't think it is the "right" thing to do. As I'm not fond of paying more money to fix this, I decided to pop open the casing around the volume control and see if there was anything obvious that might be amiss.

Behold:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8001374/IMG_20120626_172442.jpg

That white wire is not attached to anything on the little circuit board, and there is a spot next to the other wires that looks like it is missing a wire, so it seems pretty obvious that this can be resolved with a little dob of solder. But, I wanted to be sure. Can anyone verify that I'd want to connect the wire to this spot?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8001374/volume%20control%20highlighted.jpg

[evilgoodwin]

So... if they don't cover accidental damage, what kind of damage do they cover? O_O

Is it possible to see if it works without soldering? I'm not very good with hardware, but couldn't you somehow attach the wire there and see if the mic works when it touches that point?

[Arphahat]

So... if they don't cover accidental damage, what kind of damage do they cover? O_O

Is it possible to see if it works without soldering? I'm not very good with hardware, but couldn't you somehow attach the wire there and see if the mic works when it touches that point?

It seems like they will cover it if it just stopped working, or if there was a manufacturing defect. I was bummed, but not surprised.

Your idea of experimenting is a good one. Thanks for the suggestion.

Though, what I ended up doing was bringing it to work and chatting with my hardware engineer pal. He agreed that it seemed straightforward and did the actual soldering for me. Just verrified that mic now works, so yay!