Grinding the iPhone5 lightning adapter to fit case

Rickjunk4me · Feb 14, 2013

The biggest pain for me with the new lightning adapter on the iPhone5 was that I had to slip off my case before it would go in far enough to make electrical contact. Then I saw a tear down of the adapter. I could see there was about 3/16 in of plastic between the actual internals and the top of the adapter case where it meets the iPhone case. So I decided to carefully grind down the top of the case until I just began to see the metal case around the guts. I used a Dremel. It now will make contact electrically with the phone WITHOUT having to remove the case. Looks kinda "hacked" with part of the guts peeking through the top, but works fine.

Anybody else try this? Any suggestions on what cutting/grinding wheel to use to get a more "finished" appearance? I used a Dremel 426 fiberglass cutoff wheel like they did in the tear down. But it gets the plastic so hot it flows and gets messy. (Grind slower?)

Thanks,

Rick

scifan57 · Feb 14, 2013

Why not modify the case instead?

scifan57, iPhone Forums Moderator

Rickjunk4me · Feb 14, 2013

The case is an Incipio rubber-like case with very narrow bans connecting the front to the back at the bottom so as not to obscure the iPhone speakers. Cutting these bands would case the case to not fit properly I think.

scifan57 · Feb 15, 2013

I think the case designers should modify the case design. Not everyone is handy enough with tools to modify the lightning connector.

Combatmedic870 · Feb 15, 2013

I use the spigen neo hybrid ex(very nice bumper). For the lightning to 30pin WITH cord(.2m) i had to cut the case down with a dremel. For some reason apple didnt make the lightning to 30pin the same size as the regular charger....

2 cuts and done. if anyone is interested in seeing how i did it ill post pics. might help with other cases as well.