Lightning Cable Corrosion?

I'm going to mail it in, of course - nearest store is 146 miles away (price to be paid for living in Paradise). I'm certain they have all the diagnostic equipment under the sun - I've taken photos - but I don't even have a macro lens, much less a microscope. If my problem is the same as yours - and the blackening of the pins and the behavior of the cable is exactly the same as you describe - your microscope photos will tell them much more than my ordinary ones possibly could. I've been assured that I'll get a repaired or replaced unit regardless of whether the engineers want to take a look, so I'm not worried about it.

Thanks for the help, brockap3.

I had this same problem. I took nail polish remover a sewing pin and a Q-tip. I scratched away the corrosion on the cable with the sewing pin and then dipped the Q-tip in the nail polish remover and cleaned the pins after scratching away the corrosion on the pins. Plugged it into my ipad and the cable worked again hope it helps!

Funny, this just happend to my Dad and his 30pin-to-lightning adapter that he uses with his car. He started complaining that it would sometimes not charge his phone or sometimes the phone would give the non-apple accesory error. A few of pins looked dark in color but wouldnt clean when picked with a toothpick. The local Apple store replaced it under warranty. Luckily my Dad was able to find he recipt as the guy at the store was not aware of any issues plauging the cables. The store covered the replacement as the cable less than a year old (it's about six months old).

Just a head's up that I experienced corrosion failures with two of our Apple USB to Lighning cables, and I blogged about it here: http://www.zdnet.com/lightning-cables-failing-due-to-corrosion-7000026982/

Both of my iPhones are covered under AppleCare+ and both were replaced at the Genius Bar at my local Apple store.

Anecdotal evidence from reader emails indicate that these failures seem to be more prevalent in wet/moist climates and of cables kept in a vehicle. If the Lightning end of the cable is dropped onto/dipped into a wet or snowy floor mat (while plugged into a vehicle’s 12 volt power outlet) it can arc/short the cable (and even the device!) if plugged in while the end of the cable is still damp.

Oh, I have BAD news for everyone here and especially Apple.

This is NOT "corrosion", which if true, makes it easy to blame the customer.

This problem is the contacts are being BURNED out by excessive current flow through them.

The teensy contacts are just too SMALL to handle the charging current from the power supply.

A case of extremely poor design on the part of Apple. I would think the genius "electrical engineer" who posted here would have noticed this issue.

In the meantime, keep a spare on hand and keep exchanging the burned out cables with apple. 😠

GREAT fun!

it is not corrosion.

It is BURNED OUT contacts.

off topic. wrong thread dude!

BURNED OUT CONTACTS

Okay, so maybe I could've used the word eroded instead of corroded, as an EDM does, but if read my post, you would've understood them as the same thing. Thanks for contributing to the conversation.

Also, three posts is a bit much for incomplete sentence replies.

Hmm, I did not know I was dealing with a moderator.

and if you wish to say eroded, then use that word. and the cause may also be of interest.

burned off due to arcing and "corrosion" are 2 entirely different things.

and only ONE of them can be attributed to the customer.

Come on Dave, burnt is not really what he meant. Erosion (eroded) is wear, Corrosion (corroded) is oxidation.

Add me to the list of those whose lightning cables for iPhone 5 have corroded/ablated/eroded/oxidized [call it what you will, there's some kind of electro-chemical reaction going on there] to the point where the phone won't recognize them or take a charge through them. We have 3 iPhone 5s in our house, with 5 OEM cables, and all have the same issues. For a while the solution has been to wiggle the cord until a connection was finally established. As of today, that doesn't work any more on my phone. It's a royal pain to have to make the trek to an Apple store, but I guess that's my next step... The bigger worry is that there is an equivalent amount of decay on the contacts in the phone, which may require leaving the phone for service/repair and coming home phoneless!

Can you say "MAJOR DESIGN FLAW"?

I was experiencing the same issue charging my iPad mini and had stopped using the corroded charger some time ago but the problem persisted until my ipad finally stopped charging with any cable. The apple store tech guys in Brisbane Australia looked inside the port and saw a small amount of blue green residue and said it was water damage, unfixable and charged $270 AUD for a reconditioned replacement. I showed them my corroded cable and they said it was further evidence of water damage. I asked about these posts and associated media coverage and they said they would also all be due to water damage. Basically they are claiming that the fault is with all of these users it seems. They said they are happy to replace cables because they cost them next to nothing, not because they are accepting fault. All I could say is that I have never had an incident with liquid but since this is not able to be proven I guess I have no recourse.

I have the same issues. My cables last only six weeks , now both have black contacts.

Used them on new IPad Air as well as iPhone 5s .

They never have been in contact with water and if simple moisture is causing them too fail I think Apple need to redesign them.

FWIW, I got a couple of Amazon Basics lightning cables several months ago, and so far they dont show any corrosion.

In generaly they seem sturdier, though the cable housing seperated from the plug cover at the Lighting end on one.

One other complaint is that the Lightning end is too big to fit through my case (and would prbably be on most cases that dont have a totally open bottom).