We killed one lightning connector by getting the end wet whilst it was plugged into a permanently live USB charger in my car. The electrolytic effect etched away the metal from the contacts.
Much prefer it to USB for ease of insertion though so it's a minor problem easily avoided once you know the risk.
Tim
I've got a great mess of cables and chargers etc where I have the charger with the lightning connector. I just let it fall down anywhere when its not charging the phone, with it still plugged into the mains charger. Haven't killed it yet, but it'll happen sometime.
Yeah, me too. Both because it can go in either way and because it?s a lot easier to plug in than a micro USB. I have the micro USB on the the Logitech K800 backlit keyboard and the MX performance mouse and they are much less convenient and more fiddly to plug in.
Yeah, I could certainly unplug the other end of the cable from the charger, just don?t bother. I don?t leave it plugged in to the charger in the car, the cable goes in the glove box when not actually charging the phone, but that?s more to get it out of the way of the manual gear stick etc.
Also, my wife's Ipad Mini sometimes gets upset if she uses a 3rd party lightning cable rather than a genuine Apple one. How does it know?
A necessary authentication chip is built into the connector. Some copies of that do work, some don't.
Have you tried shorting them in practice. I thought that there was software that detected such things on teh iphone, as it can change the use of the conductors and if it see a short it doesn't start to charge the iPhone.
En el artículo , Roger Mills escribió:
There's an ID chip in the plug. The Chinese fakers copy it and it works until Apple release a new version of iOS and check for it, then it stops working.
En el artículo , whisky-dave escribió:
You are correct. It's Wodney spouting his usual bullshit under yet another nym. Best ignored.
You have an ID chip in there that you have to pay apple to use. Its just another way to make apple users pay as the chip doesn't do anything useful and makes the cable less reliable.
The sole purpose of which being to rip you off for the cable. Bastards.
Sounds like more rubbish.
Micro USB connectors are bloody flimsy and wear out quite quickly. I tripped over my (extra long 2m) charging lead and tugged it out of the phone with the result that it fell out far too easily afterwards.
So bin it and buy a new USB to Micro USB lead along with a Poundshop ciggy lighter USB charger doofah.
Dell laptop PSUs do this now - which is both bloody annoying and dumb.
I'd say they have done it for quite a while?
Well, except that I believe the chip reports the potential power rating of the PSU so the laptop know then if it can just run, or run and charge etc.
I think (from memory) it's a single wire , half-duplex communication going on down the middle (3rd) pin.
I've replaced a few broken cables on Dell laptop PSU's (mostly for the S&G's and only for my use thereafter).
I crack the plastic PSU case open by carefully tapping round the 'seam' with the ball end of a toffee / pin hammer. Lift the PCB out and de-solder the old wires, re-solder the new and after testing (with the case taped on the PSU), glue the case back together with some plastic solvent adhesive (where in most cases you wouldn't even know it had been apart). I then put a turn of red tape around it and mark it as 'Test only' with a Sharpie (not that there is any reason why it wouldn't be fine but better safe than sorry etc).
Cheers, T i m
p.s. I have one of those Targus 'Universal' laptop PSU's that may also have a Dell compatible chip in as I believe it also charges as well as powers.
Quite possible - it was might first Dell laptop :)
I was wondering if it was RFID or some sort of monkey business on the wire.
I would not mind if all it did was disable "Fast charge mode" - but it goes into a pathetic limp mode when using a foreign PSU, which is dead annoying...
Ah - that is useful to know - ta!
>En el artículo , Huge escribió:
Absolutely yes. I've got one of those 'battery cases' for my iPhone 5. The last one stopped working because the iOS 7-8 upgrade rejected the case's Lightning chip, so I had to get another. I'm not upgrading it to iOS9!
And yes, some of my third party cables stopped working as well.
Bastards.
Yup.
I think if they are 'good' in the first place and you are careful they can be 'ok'.
One of the few things I specifically like about Mac laptops is the MagSafe connector. I now see you can get that sort of thing in a generic uUSB connector. You plug a very small adaptor into your uUSB socket connector charged device and use the mating supplied MagSafe clone lead (supplied) into the std USB charger.
I have a fairly old but still functional Archos G9 tablet were some of the plastic material supporting the uUSB socket is broken. You can still plug a charging lead in but you have to be very careful to plug it in the right way round. I've ordered one of the mag-connectors and may even glue (using a small drop of something like Evo-Stick) the socket converter in. It does have 4 pins on the connector but I'm not sure if they are all 4 pins found on a std USB plug or just duplicates of the power pins so the connector is reversible?
Like this:
Cheers, T i m
It is 'monkey business' that's for sure, but using good old slow speed data (16Kb/sec, compared with RF) AFAIK.
I can't remember if the charge rate changes if the ability of the charger isn't detected but what you say makes sense.
Don't go out and buy one till I've checked it! ;-)
Cheers, T i m
The video seems to suggest that it's reversible for charging but only works one way round for data transmission.
On one of the videos, the phone's case seemed to get in the way - stopping the magnetic lead from attaching properly. Would be interesting to know whether that's a *real* problem.
I also wonder what happens when you want to use an OTG cable. It would be nice if there were an alternative cable with a female USB socket on the end - with the ability to share the one uUSB adapter - but that seems unlikely.
IKEA make LED lamps with a Qi charger in the base (and USB socket) in the base , also modules to add to furniture yourself. I use one as a bedside reading lamp.
Yes, I spotted that after. ;-)
Funnily enough our daughter (prone to tripping over her cables) questioned that. She has the more 'rugged' cases on her phones and I suggested that maybe she could open the charging hole up with a hole punch to allow the magnetic mount in properly.
I think that's the principal of the Znaps connector (if I understand you correctly) in that it effectively converts the existing socket into a magnetic one but then presents a std uUSB (or Thunderbolt is it) socket to accept all the existing leads and functions etc.
Cheers, T i m
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