Eli5: How are phones waterproof even though the charging port terminals can be exposed to water and not short circuit them?
In: 4320
Doing nightshift currently, sleep deprived af and jumped in the shower couple of days with my Samsung in hand, was under the shower for a full minute before I realised what was happening.
Telling y’all about it from the very phone that I showered with, phew
Waterproof USB Type-C connectors leverage a rubber seal and a seamless housing to keep water out. These connectors should be rated for IPX8 water ingression performance (per IEC 60529).
Where the 8 in the IPX8 rating refers to the depth and length of time a device may remain underwater; in this case a device can survive for 30 minutes in a water depth of 1.5 meters.
The most common rating found in modern phones is IP68 where the 8 still pertains to same criteria but the 6 refers to the device also being dust proof.
The port should shut off the moment it detects moisture. This is done by chips isolating the port’s connections to the rest of the circuitry. An opto-isolator or optical isolator is a very popular isolating chip.
One way it can detect moisture is by detecting when one or multiple low voltage contacts on the port short to the ground contact or their voltages drop to almost 0volts.
When this happen, the device often warns the user that moisture has been detected and to disconnect or not charge the device. This is not so much for the safety of the device as the port is off at this point but because it does not know what the power source is. If the power source doesn’t have a waterproof rating, it may get damaged when connected to the wet port on your device.
Hope this helps understand or was it too much info?
Water is a very poor conductor and won’t damage electronics but minerals will. Ports are generally safe on the outside because water usually can’t bridge the gaps. For finer pitched components like a chip it certainly can though.
You can easily run your phone submerged in pure distilled water though. Also your PC if you wanted.
Also phones like the Motorola defy had literally a cap onto the charging port and Jack port
Lots of really bad answers.
Charging ports aren’t powered until a charger is plugged in. Not charger, no power, no short.
When a charger is plugged in, things become more interesting.
* modern phone chargers actually negotiate power levels with the phone. They essentially start at zero then decide how much higher to go. If there’s water in the port, no negotiation, no power, no short
* phones can provide further protection by detecting when water is present and electronically disconnecting the charging port. No connection, no power , no short.
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Eli5: it’s like a secret door that requires a knock and a passcode. If you think the door is going to hurt you, you don’t knock. If the person behind the door thinks your going to hurt them, they don’t answer the door.
The phone’s housing is sealed with an adhesive gasket that is applied at the factory. The port not only powers down but is placed in such a way that it benefits from that gasket. In addition to this, the tongue the socket on your cable inserts to is pretty well sealed all on its own.
Every port going through a water resistant phone’s exterior has a little gasket that isolates the port from the rest of the phone, so only the port is exposed to water and can have is power disabled when the phone detected the port has water in it. The charging port itself on a modem Samsung device is a removable piece connected to a circuit board and the port itself is surrounded with a rubber sock-like covering that seals up against the other components to keep any water inside the port and away from everything else.
Charging terminals are a power *input*, not a power *output*. There can be a dead short across them and it’s not a big deal. Water resistant phones can also detect abnormal current leakage between contacts when you plug something in to charge the device, and it will let you know the port is wet. Hit it with some canned “air” and blow the water out, and it will continue to work just fine.
Water will short the charging port, so the phone looks for a short. If the phone detects a short, it says “hey there’s a short. That probably means there’s water in the port, so I’m gonna turn off the port until the short goes away”
No damage is done as long as the moisture doesn’t exist in the port while it’s on.
CAT (as in CATEPILLAR) Work phones do it very simply. They have a rubber hatch over the USB and 3.5mm jack that you close when you’re not recharging the phone or using the jack.
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