Spare Lithium batteries banned in checked luggage from January 1st 2008

mikkowilson

mikkowilson

Steadi-Guru
Effective January 1, 2008, the following rules apply to the spare lithium batteries you carry with you in case the battery in a device runs low:
  • Spare batteries are the batteries you carry separately from the devices they power. When batteries are installed in a device, they are not considered spare batteries.
  • You may not pack a spare lithium battery in your checked baggage
  • You may bring spare lithium batteries with you in carry-on baggage – see our spare battery tips and how-to sections to find out how to pack spare batteries safely!
  • Even though we recommend carrying your devices with you in carry-on baggage as well, if you must bring one in checked baggage, you may check it with the batteries installed.
Click to expand...

http://safetravel.dot.gov/whats_new_batteries.html


- Mikko
 
Great, more worthless restrictions.
I think our NP1's are lithium based and we have about a dozen of them.
Thanks for the heads up Mikko.
 
Ok, Jared - what's the lithium content of the DVXUser batteries? The old and the new ones? ;-)

I wonder how the TSA folks will know...

Man, I was once checking three robots onto a flight, and made the mistake of saying "lead acid battery" rather than just "battery". I had to spend an hour unpacking, disassembling, re-assembling, and re-packing (in a much less secure, improvised manner) just so they could see that "lead acid battery" didn't mean a vile of liquid acid that might break...
 
On the other hand, this might be one of the least "useless" restrictions I've seen in a while... there HAVE been many problems with spontaneous combustion of LiIon batteries....
 
The 5400mah batteries (like the OEM Panasonic) or DVX are approximately 50 WH or 4g of equivalent lithium content. The 8g Li-Ion limit rule was established several years ago, for transportation industry purposes like moving them between the manufacturer and warehouse. Now the airlines are adopting this, for a good reason. One of the recent incidents was a video crew flying to Bahamas to cover Anna Nicole Smith, their batteries started to burn in the overhead compartment. Another even bigger event was an emergency landing of a UPS plane. It ended up a total loss after the landing.
 
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Note that this is FAA (and to the best of my knowledge applies only to the USA), not TSA.
It's a safty thing, not a security thing.

- Mikko
 
When I was in the Air Force I was a Haz-Mat inspector for cargo planes, spare lithium batteries were always on our watch list, primarily ones for laptops though, but if you have seen the holes a leaking battery can make all the way through an aircraft to the ground below you will understand. I have seen a small lithium battery cause over 1mil dollars worth of damage to a C-17. The constant changing of air pressure and elevation can put alot of stress on the battery.
 
Right, and that's what this ruling is about .. it forces you to carry those batteries on with you, so that they arn't left unattended in the hold.

Would be nice if they eased up the restirctions on carry on weight a little - or even let you buy more than the regular allowance for carry on (like you can for checked.) I'd be happy to be able to pay a few bucks extra for the ability to not have to check more frangile gear beacuse my carry on is full.

- Mikko
 
My paper said that you're limited to two batteries per person.

Looks like I'll have to ship the rest to my destination.
 
snowleopard said:
I thought it was the other way around?!? My bad.
Click to expand...

Yeah, easy mistake though .. the rules are of course very confusing. Especially that stuff about quantities..


I'm not looking forward to risking batteries at $500/each to misinterpreting the rules. With my standard 3 batteries, trying to transport them incorrectly can be VERY costly.

- Mikko
 
I wonder if the batteries on the gear count towards the limit or if that is for batteries above and beyond what is attached to the gear?

I usually carry at least 5 batteries with me on flights. It's going to suck if I can only travel with two.
 
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