I broke my telephone with pocket lint, leaving me with (costly) pocket junk

I’ve a love-hate relationship with USB Type-C. On the one hand, I get pleasure from its ubiquity within the client charging house, its reversible connector design, and its immense energy supply and information bandwidth potential. However, I discover its bodily design to ‘snap’ into place much less satisfyingly than Apple’s older Lightning commonplace, and I’ve run into points with unfastened cables and with an accumulation of particles throughout the feminine finish of the reciprocal.

I have been utilizing USB-C smartphones because the days of the Nexus 5X in 2015, and with out fail, it has been a wrestle to keep away from the build-up of lint, mud, filth, and different grime on each handset I’ve slipped into my pocket. To be clear, I take cleanliness severely, and I’m going out of my technique to take away any and all mud and lint that kinds throughout the pockets of my clothes on a semi-regular foundation.

This all got here to a head in 2023, after roughly a 12 months of proudly owning my then-daily smartphone carry, the Samsung Galaxy S20 5G. On the time, I relied solely on wired USB to high up my battery, having not yet discovered the wonders of magnetic inductive charging. I additionally commonly toted my S20 with out a case, leading to a ton of ugly dings and scratches across the charging port space very quickly in any respect.

Past beauty harm, a much more vital difficulty started to rear its head round this time. Regardless of my pocket-cleaning propensities, I discovered myself struggling an increasing number of to plug my telephone in to cost, and it’d usually fall proper out through the night time, leaving me with a dead battery the following morning. What I did not know on the time was that I had a really actual, very critical pocket lint drawback on my palms.

I broke my Galaxy S20 whereas attempting to repair it

I wasn’t cautious sufficient, and my telephone suffered the implications

Model

Samsung

SoC

Exynos 990 / Qualcomm Snapdragon 865

Show

6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity-O (3200 x 1440)

RAM

8GB / 12GB LPDDR5 RAM

Storage

128GB

Battery

4,000mAh

The Galaxy S20 is Samsung’s flagship Android smartphone for 2020, with a 6.2-inch show panel, a 4,000mAh battery, and the Snapdragon 865 processor within the US.

With a flashlight in tow, I peered into my Galaxy S20’s USB-C charging port with curiosity. I figured there should’ve been some type of mechanical difficulty with the port itself, whether or not because of misalignment, bent contact pins, or maybe a producer defect. Not as soon as did I contemplate the potential for lint accumulation; certainly there could not be that a lot mud and particles constructed up in a single 12 months, proper?

Properly, I used to be improper.

To my shock, there was a lot pocket lint compacted into my S20’s poor USB-C port, that I am shocked my cable was insertable in any respect, if solely partially. From right here, I made a decision to place some elbow grease into my drawback, and I reached for my provide of toothpicks, stitching needles, cotton swabs, and rubbing alcohol.

I made fast work of the lint, digging out the vast majority of my USB-C particles in just some minutes. Happy with my outcomes, and feeling cathartic from the satisfaction of the extraction course of itself, I went forward and plugged in my S20 to provide its revitalized USB-C port a check run.

The connector plugged into place with a renewed confidence, with far much less give than it had beforehand had. I sighed in aid, and, moments later, my S20 abruptly shut itself off. In my haste to take away pocket lint, I by no means bothered to show off my telephone forward of time, and I by no means thought in regards to the penalties of jamming a metallic needle into my working telephone, blended with copious quantities of saturated isopropyl rubbing alcohol.

How one can take away pocket lint the protected means

This is how one can keep away from my tragic debris-filled destiny

On reflection, I completely manhandled my defenseless Galaxy S20. I used to be far too aggressive with my prodding and poking, and I nearly definitely scratched USB pins within the course of. I additionally used a toothpick at one level through the lint removing course of, and the bigger measurement bent the pins ever so barely. By far my largest mistake, nonetheless, was choosing a ninety % rubbing alcohol answer, and mixing it with a conductive needle and a still-powered-on telephone.

Ultimately, I by no means managed to resuscitate my S20. My inexperience, lack of foresight, and impatient nature led to my handset’s premature dying, and I reaped the implications of my actions. Fortunately, your telephone would not need to ever endure an analogous destiny.

Because it occurs, Pocket-lint has a dedicated article on how one can correctly take away pocket lint from stricken tech devices — smartphones included. Listed below are a number of easy ideas to bear in mind, to keep away from my pitfalls altogether:

• Flip off your telephone earlier than the cleanup course of.
• Use solely small quantities of rubbing alcohol, and keep on with a seventy % formulation or decrease (greater percentages comprise much less water, which slows down the evaporation course of).
• Keep away from sticking steel objects into your telephone’s USB-C port, and keep away from thicker objects that might bend pins misplaced.
• Keep away from needles and toothpicks, and choose as a substitute for a plastic dental decide.
• The internals of a USB-C port are delicate — be light and gingerly when scraping out lint, mud, and different particles.
• In lieu of rigorous scraping, use a can of compressed air (or a devoted compressed air gun) to fastidiously dislodge compacted crud.

Today, I depend on USB-C mud plugs

I actually hope USB-D comes with a built-in lint lure

As I’ve written about beforehand, my dangerous USB-C cleansing expertise led me to suppose outdoors the field for an answer. To keep away from the buildup of mud and lint on all my future smartphones and different cellular devices, I’ve been relying on a set of dirt-cheap anti-dust plugs from Amazon. These small rubber plugs match snuggly into place, making a bodily barrier between the port and the harmful outdoors world.

To keep away from the effort of eradicating and reinserting my mud plugs each day, I’ve additionally gone forward and switched to wi-fi charging. This not solely reduces the each day wear-and-tear on my telephone’s USB-C port, however it additionally stops my S20-era scratched body drawback useless in its tracks.

Finally, regardless of USB Kind-C’s deserves, I really feel the connector specification lacks a little bit of robustness on the bodily aspect. Whereas it is simple sufficient to seal the port from water and mud and to earn an official IP score, there is no ingress safety ranking for pocket lint.

If and when USB-D lastly hits the market, I’ve one request from the USB Implementers Forum: please engineer the specification to incorporate a built-in lint lure. Maybe this might take the type of a miniature mesh, related conceptually to the one discovered on dryers and different home equipment. Such a mesh might be conceivably designed to break down in on itself each time a cable is inserted right into a port, successfully ending my must buy mud plugs, and including additional robustness to any and all USB-equipped client electronics.