Latest on Li Ion travel.....

[pauldudeck]

Here is what I got from Orbitz today:

 

Dear Orbitz traveler,

 

Here at the OrbitzTLC Center, we're always keeping an eye on news that may affect your travel experience. We wanted to let you know about a new federal law that bans spare lithium batteries in checked baggage. Effective January 1, 2008, air travelers will be required to keep all spare lithium batteries in carry-on baggage, with the terminals covered. For more details, please visit the Department of Transportation's Safe Travel Web site at http://safetravel.dot.gov/whats_new_batteries.html.

 

Thanks for traveling with Orbitz. Have a good trip.

 

Sincerely,

The OrbitzTLC Team

[Bryan Fowler]

Does is count if the Li-on is scratched out, and Ni-cd is written in it's place... with nice penmanship?

 

*shrugs*

 

Just wondering.

[nick franco]

Does is count if the Li-on is scratched out, and Ni-cd is written in it's place... with nice penmanship?

 

*shrugs*

 

Just wondering.

No, it has to be a p touch label.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

[Mikko Wilson]

This is nice, as I have lots of space for my batteries in my carry-on, alongside my laptop, hard drives, camera, and array of liquids not exceeding 3oz... :angry:

 

 

How does this affect us operators in practice?

 

Do we now simply pack our sleds with batteries attached? (well, only one on my Archer - unless I sack my E-10's together [much safer...])

And does a battery on my extra plate count as "installed"? Maybe if I tape a small blinking LED to it... :ph34r:

 

- Mikko

[Mike McGowan SOC]

I was actually going to do a job in another state a few months ago at a low budget cash rate for a friend. As it turned out, it would have been too expensive to ship my gear so I had to turn the job down. Basically they make it extremely difficult for a steadicam operator to travel with his/her gear these days.

 

mm.

 

P.S. I think you can also legally use the Jedi mind trick on the bag checker, "These are not Li batteries, they are Ni-cad..." I think that works as well.

[Mark Karavite]

After reading the instructions on the link, I wonder if simply putting your batteries on the charger fulfills the requirement of "on a device"? I have 6 Dionics, and 6 charging stations, so that would require a simple change of the layout inside my battery case. My Proformers can travel as normal.

 

I'm going to follow up after the holidays and see if my assumption is true. If the battery charger doesn't count as a device, then I'd probably opt for a small case to carry on my Dionics, and put them back in their proper home when I hit the ground.

 

I was bummed when my cart became oversized (when it went from 100 lbs. mac to 70 lbs.). That's an inconvenience. Not being able to ship batteries as baggage is a huge pain. What's next?

 

I'll post what I find out next week.

 

Mark

[Mike McGowan SOC]

^^of course the crazy thing is that even if they say it's cool and you get a new case just to travle with, by the time your at an airport, the rules will have changed!^^

 

mm.

[Alfeo Dixon SOC]

Effective January 1, 2008, air travelers will be required to keep all spare lithium batteries in carry-on baggage, with the terminals covered.

Not that my smallest and heaviest case is the freaking batteries...

P.S. I think you can also legally use the Jedi mind trick on the bag checker, "These are not Li batteries, they are Ni-cad..." I think that works as well.

I think the correct verbiage is "These are not the Lithiums you are looking for... [waves hand]" but I'll check with legal and get back to ya!

After reading the instructions on the link, I wonder if simply putting your batteries on the charger fulfills the requirement of "on a device"?

I'm sure that will never make it... to the average TSA agent, my Power Cubes on the charger look like a nice ready made b@mb... better chance of lugging that around (2 charges and 6 batts)

 

-Alfeo

[Lawrence Karman]

Here is a related article with links in today's NY Times. Happy New Year to all.

 

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/l...an-check-again/

[Jon Beattie]

in reading the articles that are out there. including the .gov regets they've made limits on the watthr's of the batteries you can carry as "extra." I've seen some article which say as long as the extra batteries ar in a plastic bag and within the regulated watt hr its ok. the thing is this as long as the batteries are in a device of use you can have them no problem. the charger probably won't jive. But i wonder it someone makes a simple electroic game or tool with vmount or ab mounts you can get away with having 6 oversized tetris games on you carry on.

[Mike McGowan SOC]

and again, ill just mention that regardless of what the specific rules are or what gadget or case we come up with, they can, will and do change the rules at the drop of a hat which makes the whole situation kind of suck. i wonder if anybody at the airport would actually be able to tell a li from a ni???? could you just pop (or grind) the li lable off and if they by some mirical asked what type of batteries they were you could just say, "nicad"?????

 

mm.

[Philip J. Martinez SOC]

So what are we supposed to do?

 

Do we need to buy a new set of batteries for out of town jobs?

[Mike McGowan SOC]

I'd say bring your normal bats. Go to the airport early, be optimistic and ready to punt if need be.

 

I also wonder, there arent many people in the world that could even tell a Li from a Ni........ What are the odds that some dude at the airport can?

[Chris McKissick]

Hey there..

 

Just got home from San Francisco Intl (I live in Munich).

 

I had packed my 4 bp-gl65's li-ions in a plastic bag in my carry on luggage since that was what I thought would be ok. Doesn't it say so on the link? Should I have read more thoroughly?

 

Anyway... so the TSA guy took them out of course and went to ask his supervisor which in return told me that no more than one battery on the device it poweres and one spare are allowed on the plane as of 01.01.08.

 

I was escorted out of the security check area back to the checkin hall. Rather panicked, I ran back to the counter, had my carry on bag checked but took one of the 4 batteries out and with me on bord.

 

That was OK weird enough. I'm confused...

 

 

The TSA supervisor said he didn't really understand why the rule came up all of a sudden and that if I wanted to, I could write TSA a mail and complain... with enough people complaining, he said, it might change something.

 

Well.. that's my battery story.

My advice is to just put them in your checked luggage but who knows... The next TSA supervisor might have a different opinion on how the rule is to be interpreted. <_<

 

happy air travel :)

[pauldudeck]

Just some number to throw out at you:

 

35+ li ion "incidents" in 2006

125+ li ion "incidents" in 2007

 

Most of which are in cell phones or laptops of course, but what do increasing numbers of problems tell you? Do you really want to be on a plane and start smelling smoke of any kind?

 

The laws are going to get even more strict around October 2008........this is not going away......

 

Think about this also; cell manufacturers are not even trying to improve the amount of capacity in li ion cells. There main focus and concerns are to make them as safe as possible. So, since 1994 when the first li ion batteries were made, there hasn't been anything in the way of higher capacity cells for li ion.....

 

Paul