![]() ![]() The Lightning connector was unveiled on stage by Phil Schiller, who was Apple’s head of marketing at the time. And as smartphones were getting thinner and companies were working on better cameras and batteries, some things had to change. If you had an iPod, you were already quite familiar with that connector.īut then the iPhone evolved while the iPod slowly met its end. At first, this was never a problem for most users, especially since the iPhone was a niche. Naturally, iPhone was announced with the same 30-pin connector as iPod, so that it could take advantage of the ecosystem of accessories already available on the market. Pre-Lightning eraīefore the iPhone, iPod was Apple’s only portable device, and it had a proprietary 30-pin connector that was first introduced with the 2003 iPod (the first two generations had a FireWire connector that was only compatible with Macs). In September 2012, Apple announced the Lightning connector with the promise of being a “modern connector for the next decade.” A decade later, it seems that Lightning won’t survive the iPhone 15. These early failures of these charging/data cables must be severely adding land fill, resource usage and is not acceptable when it is considered the vast number of phones etc out there.10 years ago, Apple was still about to introduce iPhone 5, so basically every iPhone and iPad of that time still relied on the old 30-pin iPod connector. Which is probably what is happening also with a too thin layer of gold exacerbated by the higher current draw on that terminal. Very careful cleaning can return the functionality of the cable but probably won’t last long as the gold plating will probably be perforated to the underlying much more easily oxidisable probably copper layer. It needs someone to investigate the thickness etc of the gold plating etc eg is the gold plating thickness inversely proportional to the rate of the problem. With the lightning cables though this problem for me has occurred on the more expensive cables eg apple ones. ![]() From a visual inspection looked as though the gold plating was thicker though it may also be that the terminal under the gold plating maybe better quality lower resistance and possibly with less heating. Advised by the supplier of the equipment to try a higher quality cable which had superior connection terminals. I had the same problem with normal Ethernet cables in a higher than normal power draw application. From that one could infer that it could be the thickness of the gold plating. You could well be right…,also I thought these connections were all gold plated… I have several cables but this problem does not occur on all of them. This is certainly true in my cable’s case as I can only charge and sync my iPhone from one side of the cable as other ones doesn’t work at all making the problem particularly annoying. In many cases when the pin becomes black, one side of the lighting cable stops working. You are welcome to comment below about the result, if you give it a try. We haven’t tested his solution of cleaning the cable with alcohol so can’t confirm if it works. He goes further by suggesting to clean the cable with alcohol, which may make the black side of the cable functional again. Since the electric current is able to jump between the plates easily, this overtime causes the copper to erode, making the pin appear black. The likely cause for this is due to a capacitor charging and drawing more current for a fraction of the second. When the connector is plugged into the iPhone or iPad’s lighting port, there can be a small spark gap that happens when the cable is connected with the device. ![]() ![]() He explains that the pin or the ‘terminal’ either has a positive or negative voltage connection. According to the user it is a common electrical phenomenon. Luckily another Reddit user who introduces himself as an electrical engineer explains the reason behind 4th pin turning black from gold. Why Fourth Pin On Lightning Cable Becomes Black Turns out it is something that is quite common and many people have seen lightning cable corrosion judging by the respondents on the Reddit post. After reading his post and looking at the picture that he shared of his cable, I looked for one of my older iPhone cables that had the similar black spot. Today I stumbled upon a Reddit post in which a guy asked the community why does his lightning port’s 4th pin has turned black. Over the years we have all had lightning cables that have shown burn marks and black pin. Have you ever had a lightning cable whose 4th pin (or 5th depending on which side you are counting from) turns from golden color to black? If yes, then you are certainly not alone. ![]()
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