Yeah… be incredibly careful about shoving something with metal bristles into your charging port.
Maybe once a year I get a bit of gunk in my port (hey-oh!). Samsung (presumably all usb c androids?) are generally really good about losing their shit and yelling at you to remove the cable immediately and clean your port.
So when I get home? I just get one of my flossers (for teeth) that tend to have a cheap plastic toothpick attached to it. Works perfect, no liquids, and very minimal risk of damaging the port.
Made from cheap soft wood: more likely to deform or destruct against metal than most plastics
Cut with the grain: especially soft to anything raking against the sides (like delicate pins)
The uneven “splintery” sides happen to be pretty good at snagging tiny fibers of lint to pull them out as one big ball, requiring fewer swipes
More techniques:
clean with port facing straight down to get gravity assist
blow across the opening of the port: mild negative pressure + agitation inside cavity vs blowing directly into port (which is generally warned against explicitly)
focus on “pinning” lint up against each of the two corners and holding gentle pressure during extraction: these corners of the port have no exposed pins, and happen to be where lint tends to accumulate anyway
I’m not saying anyone should follow my example, and in fact I’m probably saying no one should follow my example… but I have definitely used a metal glasses screwdriver to clean my charging port before
Shorting isn’t the problem as much as metal against metal bending things. Those contacts are fragile. Plastic or wood and being gentle won’t hurt anything.
Yeah… be incredibly careful about shoving something with metal bristles into your charging port.
Maybe once a year I get a bit of gunk in my port (hey-oh!). Samsung (presumably all usb c androids?) are generally really good about losing their shit and yelling at you to remove the cable immediately and clean your port.
So when I get home? I just get one of my flossers (for teeth) that tend to have a cheap plastic toothpick attached to it. Works perfect, no liquids, and very minimal risk of damaging the port.
I’ve always used wooden toothpicks because
More techniques:
I’m not saying anyone should follow my example, and in fact I’m probably saying no one should follow my example… but I have definitely used a metal glasses screwdriver to clean my charging port before
I use a scalpel.
A push pin is my go-to.
This is all very horrifying when reading with the childish mindset of what “charging-port” can be an euphemism of.
Your phone’s charging circuit almost certainly has short protection built in.
Shorting isn’t the problem as much as metal against metal bending things. Those contacts are fragile. Plastic or wood and being gentle won’t hurt anything.