New lithium battery restrictions when flying, USA

Roger

Roger

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

1) No more lithium batteries in checked luggage unless they are installed in/on the device they are for (i.e. not a spare)

2) Limit of up to 25 grams of lithium in batteries over 8 grams of lithium per. If less than 8 grams per battery, no limit.


It says that most "consumer" batteries have less than 2 grams of lithium content. But if you aren't sure, do you think your friendly TSA officer will know as well?
 
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... just another rule to keep you safe while flying brought to you by our friends at TSA...


Eventually it will get to the point that they will not allow humans on the planes for safety reasons...
 
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This Article explains the reason for the ban. Apparently, lithium batteries tend to heat up and catch on fire when they are short circuited and the fire suppression system in the cargo hold is not capable of extinguishing the fires. There was a cargo plane fire at Philadelphia International last year that the NTSB could not rule out Lithium batteries as the source of the fire. That's the reason for the no spares in the cargo hold part of the rule. I guess they want to minimize the potential for fire in the cabin with the 2 battery 25g aggregate limit.
 
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It said the limit was two per person is that two in my carry on? I bring a lot of those things because it's what I use in my camera.
 
"DisneyGeek92" said:
It said the limit was two per person is that two in my carry on? I bring a lot of those things because it's what I use in my camera.
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There's a chart at the bottom of the site rlongenbach posted that explains it. If your batteries have less than 8g of lithium equivalent content, you can carry as many as you want in both carry-on and checked baggage as long as they are installed in the device that uses them. If you want to carry spares, they have to be in your carry-on baggage, and as long as they are less than 8g of lithium equivalent, you can carry as many as you want. If they are between 8 and 25g of lithium equivalent, you can carry up to 2 batteries in your carry-on baggage.

Now the trick is finding out the weight of the lithium in our batteries...
 
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"DisneyGeek92" said:
Do you know if I have to contact the manufacturer or if I can just go to Wal Mart or Target and look at the equivalent batteries?
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I don't know if they list the content on the batteries or not. My guess is that you'll have to call the manufacturer. I've been trying to find that information for my laptop battery and my Nikon rechargeable batteries, and can't find that information anywhere. I'm going to call Nikon when they are open again on Monday, and I'm going to call Dell today to see what they say.
 
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On the one hand I think rules like this as asinine.. on the other hand I was expecting this. I fly remote control planes, with a special fondness for electric planes. In the world of electric flight Lithium Polymer (a distinct subtype from lithium ion) is king. They have Lithium Ion's ability to store a lot of power, btu they can also output it much more rapidly than Li-ion can. And they're famous for catching fire if mistreated. There are stories going around of cars that have been destroyed when a plane's battery caught fire in the back seat. I've never seen it happen, but I'm told it looks like molten lava exploding out from the battery.

I think the lithium weight content is a dumb way to do this though. I gather they're trying to contain the total energy content that your batteries can have, so if they do catch fire it's a smaller fire. But if that's the case, then do it by energy capacity. Most batteries have that spec printed on their side.

I don't know about Lithium metal, though. That's a new one on me. I wonder if it's a new high current chemistry, perhaps similar to lithium polymer.

For the record, if they claim that many laptop batteries are under the limit then I think it's guaranteed that all camera batteries are under it. The lithium content should be related to the energy content, and camera batteries are pretty much always going to be smaller than laptop batteries.

The thing that baffles me about this, though, is.. am I to believe that the Thousands Standing Around (the way a pilot I know refers to the TSA) will know the lithium content of my batteries? It sounds like the TSA is going to be relying on us to check it out, I just can't imagine that they'll have charts of hundreds of popular lithium battery models that they can use to look up the serial numbers of all of your batteries when you go through security.
 
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I'm waiting for the TSA to just say that we cannot carry any luggage on a plane. Afterall, the US Government wants us spending money on our credit cards. What better way than making you buy all the stuff you need when you get to your destination only to leave it behind.
 
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"harra" said:
I'm waiting for the TSA to just say that we cannot carry any luggage on a plane.
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British Airways is almost there my friend. I believe they've made it 2 bags in total for a transatlantic flight and something like a 7kg limit for carryons.

Now unless you're shooting with a D40, the camera gear alone will get close to 7kg.
 
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The day they say people cannot bring laptops on the plane and it MUST be checked is the day that you see a huge drop in business travelers
 
Fortunately, I think we're ok... according to this site, the nikon en-el4a battery only has 2.25 grams of lithium. Since that battery is Nikon's largest, its safe to assume that there aren't any other DSLR batteries on the market that are above 8 grams, allowing us to fly with as many spares as we want... Until they change the rules again.

Using the same math, the battery for my Dell laptop is about 8 amp hours, making it about 21.6 grams of lithium. I guess we can't fly with more than one laptop battery...
 
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no dan the tsa or total suck ****** in my opinion, gee can you tell i do not like or respect them, and my opinion comes form their inability to make clear cut rules on some things
tripods, call tsa 3 times and get 3 different answers
1. yes if its small
2, no, no tripods at all
3. maybe, it's up to the individual minimal wager with no future stander arounder to decide on the spot

so i can foresee this same dog's breakfast of answers on batteries, a total crapshoot based on where you fly from, time of day and did the low level cop wannabe have a good evening the night before

unfortunately it's going to be a real mess since unlike tripods apparently you will not be able to just suck it up and check them, i can barely restrain my self about this as it is, since i really can fly 99% of the time, and always to disney with a carryon only, i'm forced to deal with the whole checked bag thing strictly because of a tripod

most disgusting thing i ever heard about re tsa, the total busting they did to a local man i know about his cane and prosthetic legs, it got out of hand when the cop wannabe started spouting off at this man about his job function being necessary to protect the rights and freedoms of americans, said irate american lost both legs in nam, and is the holder of a silver star and 5 count em, 5 purple hearts, legs lost on his second tour in country. and to add insult to injury they wanted him to strip because he cannot pass through a metal detector or be wanded without it going off continous, due to the enourmous amount of small schrapnel pieces he still carries around inside
 
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"gary" said:
no dan the tsa or total suck ****** in my opinion, gee can you tell i do not like or respect them, and my opinion comes form their inability to make clear cut rules on some things
tripods, call tsa 3 times and get 3 different answers
1. yes if its small
2, no, no tripods at all
3. maybe, it's up to the individual minimal wager with no future stander arounder to decide on the spot
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I have to kind of agree here...with reason.

I have a brother that is authorized to carry a firearm on airliners. I can't say what he does (he is NOT an air marshall), but for his Federal Government job, he HAS to carry his firearm. Additionally, he has to CHECK a shotgun and an assault rifle (really...no joke) when he travels. He ALWAYS has to argue here in our city to get a supervisor and not deal with the minimum wage flunkies. I mean always...they HASTLE him, even knowing he has a badge and gun...amazing. On top of that, he can't carry his knife on the plane. He can carry a loaded gun on the airplane, but God forbid he carry his pocket knife or nail clippers!

I wonder what kind of batteries my kids' Nintendo DS' have in them?

Kevin
 
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I'm flying to Yellowstone on the 12th, so I'll let you know if I have any trouble. I'll be carrying 2 Nikon EN-EL4a and 2 EN-EL3e batteries plus my laptop battery.
 
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I'm going to start an airline where everyone enters a pod in the boarding area, is anesthestized, and then their pods are stacked like lumber into a cargo plane and flown to their destination. No travel hassles, no cramped seating, and I can probably knock 50% off the ticket price. No worries about luggage restrictions or anything. Welcome to Unconscious Air.
 
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Found a good site regarding all of this:

http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/ ... rline.html

They claim the Federal Register says the formula to determine lithium content = amphere hours of battery x 0.3. (per cell)

using this formula, Canon's BP-511A has 0.417 grams of lithium, the LP-E4 has 0.69 grams. Assuming one cell, even if it had two (which I think may be likely, esp for the LP-E4, it would still be 0.834 and 1.38 respectively)
 
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