Photography tutorial website The Slanted Lens has published a useful YouTube video guide on how to fly with lithium-ion camera batteries. These batteries are known for their volatility, an issue that reached mass public awareness during the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall. The FAA likewise raised concerns last year over lithium-ion batteries in checked luggage, citing their potential fire risk.
In its video, The Slanted Lens outlines all of the different types of batteries photographers may fly with, including ones installed in devices and standalone/spare li-ion batteries. Though some devices with built-in lithium-ion batteries can be packed in checked luggage, the team explains, the TSA requires others—such as a spare/standalone battery—to be packed in a carry-on.
It's a useful guide if you ever fly with your camera, and especially if you fly to shoots with multiple cameras, spare batteries, drones, etc. Check it out for yourself up top, see a written version of the guide here, and if you're even more curious, the FAA also has a guide on batteries, which you can find here.
This video is misleading because it refers to a limit of 100 watts, which it the potential power output or a battery. TSA and other regulations have a limit of 100 watt hours, the total energy storage capacity of a battery, but don’t restrict wattage.
Watt's=Watt Hours I suppose. That being said, These little baby batteries shown here are NOTHING compared to Drone Batteries. I used to Carry 27 99 Watt Hour TB47 batteries for my Matrice M600 and now I carry 8-10 99 Watt Hour TB50 batteries for my Inspire 2. They make them at the 99 watt hour size because of the TSA rules. And, the battery size rules are enforced even in other countries. The IATA makes the rules for air travel and all countries pretty much are signatories.
My lithium cell phone battery charger was confiscated (in a friendly way) by security at an airport in China a couple of weeks ago. I looked puzzled, so the agent pulled out a book and showed me that there is a limit of 100 (not sure what unit) on Chinese flights. Printed on my battery was a power rating above that, so bye-bye.
to the smartarses who have replied with rude replies I was the first poster and explained it is a non issue. Like most forums there are lots of people with nothing better to do than to blather on about nothing just to hear themselves talk so to speak.
Have a nice day comment and reply to as many posts as you can if that is how you get your self worth. It gets a little old when you try to help and then get criticized when you question why so many people are wasting their and other peoples time about an issue that simpy does not exist?
Not like I'd trust anything valuable in the check-in luggage anyway. Anyway, this overview comes handy as I'll be traveling soon with some gear. Unless they manage to change the rules once again.
The Galaxy explosion?? How did I miss a Cosmic event on that scale!! This is going to put interstellar travel back by a half a million years. So much for advance bookings.
On the video-vs. question, I would say that FAA page linked several other places here is quite unusually clear -- perhaps because it is the FAA rather than other avenues of government...
It's also not going to tell you information you don't want to hear.
I have reservations about USB battery packs too, they can get hot while charging ,someone is sure to do the wrong thing at some stage, people can be extraordinarily dumb. There has been a fire inside an aircraft where a packed battery was in an over head locker.If people don't have a container for the batteries there are all sorts of small containers about in supermarkets etc.
You would need a safe type container, i.e. big blocky metal type container, to store batteries in a more or less fire safe manner, and then this metal block would still get hot and cause all kinds of issues down the road. Noone wants to carry such a heavy metal block, though. Ideally such containers are available on the plane in one or another fashion should something happen. Biggest problem are laptop batteries, as they contain insane amounts of energy.
You are right about charging devices, though, and on my last long flight it was even being mentioned not to charge devices as they may get hot. The core issue, as you've laid out already, is the fire hazard.
The biggest warning for me is that "gate-checked = checked", so it is fine to have Li-ion camera batteries in my walk-ons, but not to leave them in a bag that then gets gate-checked.
wow. Ravpower sells some cells that can output up to 20 volts (certainly can power those 14.8V lights he's got) and have 23,000 mAH (which at 5V specified is 106 watts or 106 watt hours for non-morons. Don't tell TSA) and are less than $100. 2 or 3 of those maybe?
It's not the voltage, it's the current. A Li-Ion cell can discharge over 2000 amperes if shorted, which is enough to melt or vaporize the responsible conductor. It will render a wedding ring, for example, red hot in about half a second. Furthermore, cells can develop whiskers of lithium which short the batter internally. Dropping a Li-Ion batter, or subjecting it to a sharp blow, can lead to an internal short.
Any decent sized Lithium cell will have built-ion protection circuitry so a short won't discharge anything of note unless someone has messed with the protection circuitry or it was a permanent battery in a device (e.g. phone) and the protection was separate. Also you can't get 2000A out of a lot of things (and if you could it would immediately vapourise stuff as that's 400,000W per tenth of an ohm).
I have an emergency Li-Ion car starter battery which delivers up to 2000 amperes. It's not unusual for a starter to draw over 400A as long as it turns it turns before the engine starts. The peak amperage is 2-3 times that value. There are lead-acid emergency batteries with similar performance, but they weigh a lot more and don't hold a charge as well. People have lost fingers when a ring shorted a car battery.
2000? Wow. I have one but it does 100A. I've designed-in Lithium batteries on a number of things, but all had inbuilt short-circuit protection. (YouTube videos of batteries blowing up usually had to bypass that.)
When flying I wear my batteries around my neck like a necklace. I paint them red white and blue and if they hassle me, I charged them with disrespecting 'Murica and accuse them of kneeling at the playing of our beloved National Anthem. That usually works.
I am not sure I want to take the advice of someone who isn't able to correctly describe battery capacity. Watt =/= Watt hour For a community as pedantic about units and terms as the photographic one this seems like a large oversight. It really is a whole different matter if one is actually interested in wattage as it is related to peak current draw.
I watched the whole thing because I was worried about making a snide comment, only to have him clarify at the end... He didn't, rather he confused the issue further.
Anyway, shouldn‘t everybody in the US use ft⋅lbf or another crazy unit for energy? They certainly don‘t have earned their right to use Joule (aka Ws) or Wh yet ...
Btw, talking of crazy units ... mh is a crazy unit for 3.6s ...
@falconeyes: Careful with that debate! As a 5ft 7" tall man, I drink 2 fl oz of coffee every morning and I eat at least 3 cups of grapes - which I'm told is equivalent to the same energy as 2 gallons of tablespoons - or half a yard of a soup ladle, or climbing a 12 storey building. Well, if none of that makes sense, don't blame me - I went to school in the 1970's - we only learnt metric. The idea was to prepare the scientists and engineers of tomorrow for a global life of major projects where all collaborators spoke the same language and used the same units. Yeah, right!
This is nice, but I don't understand how a guide like this benefits from being a video. A nice, bulleted list with pictures and important points bolded and highlighted would be much better, from an informational perspective.
It's really not that hard to understand. It is a YouTube channel - therefore it is presented in form of a video. Content creators on YouTube usually don't struggle with deciding which medium to use.
At first, I agreed — but given the large number of replies from people who have not comprehended the information in the text of this short DPReview article, maybe video is the only way that a lot of people can take in information.
... or even the article here: "Though some devices with built-in lithium-ion batteries can be packed in checked luggage ... the TSA requires others ... to be packed in a carry-on."
Or as I would say it: "If the battery is in a carry-on, you can keep calm and carry on."
Many mail and courier services are banning any private shippers from shipping devices with lithium batteries in them (where air transport is used) and more countries are preventing their non-commercial importation.
I have flown fifty times with batteries and spare batteries with as many as ten lenses and four bodies in my carry on and back pack and they have inspected them and i have never had a problem
Same here, the only place I know of that you have to do the opposite is Cozumel Mexico airport, they will confiscate your batteries if they are in a carry on, they have to go in checked. They also don't like to tell you this until after you have checked your bags.
FAA Battery Guide that is allowed and what is not is too bewildering for TSA to know or even remember considering different brands, colors and plethora of battery mumbo jumbo. They usually wave you on ...
Your supposed to carry on lithium cells and airlines aren’t too interested in small camera battteries like you’d use is a dslr, what they are interested in is larger battery bricks like v-lock which range from about 90wh upto about 240wh which are about 10 times the size and capacity of a dslr battery. I get questioned regularly travelling with v locks.i stick to the carry limits, tape up the contacts and carry a print out of the faa regulations on flying with batteries and have no trouble.
@mfinely - Not sure what situation was going on in Cozumel at the time. I go to Cozumel once a year (going again next month) and I've never had an issue flying into/leaving Cozumel with my spare battering in my carry-on. I bring my 5DM3 and an underwater housing with strobes in my carry-on, and spare batteries and never had any problems. They generally ask about my gear out of admiration than concern.
I'm not the exception, there are hundreds of people who this happens to go to scubaboard.com. You just have been lucky so far. Next time look at the big bin next to the hand inspection, look at what's in it.
What do you mean when you say 'boxes'? Those plastic covers that go over the contacts and half the battery? I haven't encountered batteries that come with proper cases at all, neither Panasonic, Fuji, Sony, Nikon or Canon.
Some of my Panasonic batteries came with that little plastic caddy, some didn't, none of my Olympus did. Some came with mini zip-loc bags which I like even better.
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