US Li-Battery Ban Craze Totally Overrated
The recent panic about lithium batteries being banned by the TSA/DOT is most likely totally overrated.
All Li-Batteries are banned?
No more spare MP3 player or camera battery on planes?
Wrong!
Read the whole article for some facts and simple checks to see if you’re batteries are fine.
German news magazine heise.de has a German language article online where they take a closer look at how much Lithium has to be in the batteries for them to be banned.
The magic numbers here are 2 and 8 grams of actual Lithium.
Word of warning: I’m not a lawyer.
8 grams are roughly equivalent to 100Wh.
2 grams are roughly equivalent to 25Wh.
Let’s crunch some Numbers
| Battery Type | V | mAh | Wh | Li/g | SCarry | SCheck | ICarry | ICheck |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard AA Battery | 1.5 | 1500 | 2.25 | ~0.2 | x | x | x | x |
| Nikon EN-EL3e (D200, D2, D2X) | 7.4 | 1500 | 11.25 | ~1 | x | x | x | x |
| Acer Aspire 1501Lmi | 14.8 | 6600 | 97.68 | ~7.8 | - | x | x | x |
| Siemens M65 (Cellphone) | 3.7 | 750 | 2.775 | ~0.2 | x | x | x | x |
SCarry: OK for carry-on (not installed spare battery)
SCheck: OK for checked baggage (not installed spare battery)
ICarry: OK for carry-on if installed in device
ICheck: OK for checked baggage if installed in device
Rules of thumb
- If it’s installed the majority of batteries are OK for carry-on
- Spares up to 100Wh are OK in checked baggage
- Spares up to 25Wh are OK in carry-on
- Up to two batteries of 100Wh to 312Wh if you take precautions so batteries can’t short circuit them selfs and put it in checked baggage
- Up to two batteries of 100Wh to 312Wh if it’s installed in a device as carry-on
So, the only thing that’s kinda affected by the ban is my laptop battery, which is a real monster (4y/o laptop, one of the first with AMD64).
And even with that thing, it’s only the spares I can’t carry-on.
Installed, or checked-in spares are fine.
- Stay calm.
- Prepare facts.
- Present facts to the security guard.
- Take your batteries with you.
Simple Math
For those who don’t know how to calculate the Watt-hours
Wh = V x mAh / 1000
The Lithium content in grams can be approximated as such (assuming linear correlation)
Li/g = Wh x 0.08