Lightning port too loose?

This is what I removed from the lightning port (not the dime)

IMHO after 50 years of being involved with electronics, the lightning port is not a really good design in the service for which it is intended.

- picking up fluff/grit and hiding it (yes I have had this)

- very little tension on the eight very small contacts

-quite large forces can be applied to the contacts in the charging port by the connector being pushed up & down or from side to side, damaging the innards of the port.

-leads are replaced by after market leads which may not meet the mechanical requirements causing insufficient contact tension ( some after market leads that I have had, have little or no gold plating)

All this will lead to non charging and or the “may not be supported” message.

Solutions.

Do NOT buy the cheapest replacement leads. They will fail early & give you nothing but trouble.

Do NOT put pressure on the leads. Preferably do NOT use the phone when you are charging it.

See if some enterprising manufacturer in China will come up with a after marked rubber bung that blocks the charging port when not in use.

If a new, good brand replacement still gives you a problem, change the charging port (easy & not expensive if you do it yourself).

Lee

id start with a dental pick or needle point tweezers, in order to pick out poket lint, which is the number one cause of this. (taking it to a repair shop, they will charge a benching fee for some time, and do it properly.)

further down the road, if picking out the lint doesnt fix the issue you would need to look into the quality of the cable, and replacing the component.

The answer of cleaning the port out with a toothpick worked perfectly. I was on the verge of getting a new phone based on this issue alone and chalked it up to obsolescence. I thought for sure the charger port was loose. Cleaning it out stopped the wiggling of the cord and allows for a direct charge.

Thank you for sharing and saving me some money.

Prateek. It’s people like you that truly make the world better! Thank you sir. You have solved countless large and small issues, with one simple post.

Thank you so much for the help. I was afraid I had to get the whole port replaced. The port was full of crap. I used the sim card ejector to clean up the port. Now that I've removed everything the cable fits perfectly. I can't be grateful enough. Thanks a lot.

Holy moly! I never would have guessed. The lint was so packed in I thought I was scraping the back of the socket with the toothpick. I tried sticking a needle in to find the bottom was soft. Fixed!

Yes, this is more often the case than not… I thought I had cleaned my lightning port socket completely but it still didn’t work. I took it to someone who (1) knew what they were doing and (2) likely had a plastic tool to get it done, and they brought me out my “Like New” device minus the lint for FREE! The amount of lint that they collected was incredible, no wonder the plug did not seat! The plug is now like new.

You can actually see the back of the port if you look with a light. My wife and I had the same issue and the pointed wooden toothpick fixed both and a bunch of lint came out. But 2 days later, out of my wife’s came even more lint. Other people have reported this happening as well. As a side note, the lint is coming from your pocket…..my wife and I both keep our phones in our pocket…we know another person who keeps their phone in their purse and their charging port was lint free.

OMG THIS WORKED. My iPhone 6 will survive another year, BLESS YOU KIND SOUL.

Just stumbled across this and was really skeptical as I couldn’t see anything looking inside it. The cable wouldn’t stay in and it would not charge no matter how much pushing and twisting i did.

I got a safety pin and pulled a small amount out then finished off with a toothpick.

Unbelievable the lightning cord actually snaps in and really works as it should

ThANK YOU

This really helped me. thanks so much for posting such great tips.

You can get a charging port for this phone for about 5 dollars and install it. Jessa from ipad rehab 8 year old son has changed them. It's not that hard to do. Ifixit has them in stock and has a video to show you how to do it, if they don't YouTube has multiple videos on how to do it.

I didn’t have a toothpick but my wife had a piece of metal she uses for beading like a thin pin but not sharp and abrasive. I used it to clear out the lightning socket of my iPhone X, and was surprised how much lint I got out. The socket works fine now.

Thanks very much for this solution.

Worked perfectly, I love a simple fix. It was gross to see what builds up in side the charging port from being in your pocket.

Thanks again

Yes, this worked! I tried a toothbrush several times, looked in it, couldn’t see anything, finally turned it off and used an metal needle-like dental pick, carefully, because I didn’t have any kind of tooth pick. This might not be smart, but it did work, and this big hunk of link came out that was otherwise invisible. Now fits super-snugly again. NEVER would have guessed this was the cause. I do carry it in my pocket.

This post has really proved invaluable! Thank you for assisting so many of us, not to mention saving us a fortune and saving us continued frustration.

THANK YOU!!!

It works. Quite some garbage came out. Safety Pin / Paper Pin works better than a toothpick- pins are more accurate and do the job faster.