New Rules May Raise Cost of Buying Gadgets Online 171
ericatcw writes "Buying your next laptop or smartphone online could suddenly get a lot more expensive if a little-known US Department of Transportation proposal to tighten rules around the shipment of small, Lithium-Ion battery-powered devices by air goes through, says an industry group opposing the move. The changes, designed primarily to reduce the risk from Lithium-Ion batteries, would also forbid air travelers from carrying spare alkaline or NiMH batteries in their checked-in luggage, according to the head of the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association. The proposal is under review until March 12. It can be viewed and commented upon by members of the public."
Blame XKCD for this one (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. Look at it. Just look at it:
http://xkcd.com/651/ [xkcd.com]
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And how many cases have we seen of batteries actually starting to burn by themselves?
Known cases have been when the battery has been in the device itself, or while it was charged. Not when it was alone.
Re:Blame XKCD for this one (Score:4, Interesting)
And how many cases have we seen of batteries actually starting to burn by themselves?
*raises hand* Mind you, I work in a building that tests lithium batteries for safety. It was quite a surprise to the others guys in the building when it started to smoke before we had even unwrapped it. Then again, we don't work with consumer batteries.
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Usually technology advances over time.
But due to the paranoid delusions of many, many Americans, air travel is now less convenient than it was 20 years ago.
I'm just waiting for a sufficiently determined biochemist to lock herself in the airplane restroom, amputate her own leg, separate it into its constituent compounds, and synthesize an explosive charge. After that, they'll presumably decide to have everyone travel pre-dissected in little vials, maybe split up onto different flights just in case.
On second
Re:Blame XKCD for this one (Score:5, Insightful)
It's true. Usually we drive from North Dallas to my mother's family's house an hour west of San Antonio. It's about 6 hours by car on average, since we only travel down there on busy holiday weekends. Finally with a good job I decided to "treat" us to a 45 minute plane ride. Between parking, security, waiting on the tarmac, picking up luggage and getting the rental car it actually took us 7 hours to get to our destination. I'm seriously looking at starting a PAC to get high speed light rail between Dallas and San Antonio (with a stop in Austin of course).
Better: Communter plane express security (Score:2, Interesting)
Far more efficient than light rail would be a "separate security envelope" for commuter flights.
Requirements:
*Plane too small to take down a big building even with full fuel tanks. Think no more than 20-30 passengers. Sorry Southwest.
*Domestic flights only.
*No checked baggage, only carry-on, and only 1 or 2 full-sized items or equivalent. BUT items normally checked for size like golf clubs could be carried on. No items like guns and such, sorry, ship those ahead.
*Pre-screened, green-lighted passengers o
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You can get that sort of service already from small private airfields. The problem is it is a lot more expensive than flying in a 777 because the pilot's wages are divided between fewer passengers.
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That sort of service already exists. I took a plane from Raleigh, NC to Havelock, NC (spitting distance from a military base no less) and you just walked right out on to the tarmac, onto the plane. The plane I was on seated as many as 50 although it was only about half full that day.
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This should cut the "arrive before departure" time down to 30 minutes or less.
This is really only an issue with some airports (or during really busy flying days).
I regularly arrive at BWI [bwiairport.com] about 60 minutes before my flight and end up sitting in the gate waiting area for about 15 minutes (since boarding is generally 30 minutes before the scheduled departure). Security takes less than 15 minutes from the time I walk up to the end of the line until I am completely through.
By far the biggest time wasters in "flying" are the sitting in the plane on the ground and the inability of airlines
Sensible Idea (Score:2, Interesting)
That sounds like it would make a lot of sense. Amtrak already has a route from Fort Worth to San Antonio, the "Texas Eagle", but it's dog slow. According to Amtrak, a one-way trip from FW to SA is $30, but takes 7 hrs, 45 min. According to Kayak, I can get a flight from DFW to SAT for about $155 one way, but it only takes an hour of flight time. According to Google, it would take about 4 hrs to drive one way. It seems like if you could build along the existing rights-of-way for the existing rail, you c
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Here in Dallas the DART rail is called "light rail" and does not share the road with cars (except for a short three block section in downtown).
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Am I the only one who finds the women in XKCD cartoons so damn sexy?
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Ha ha! Me too!
It's comics at their best. Randall Munroe gives the audience only the most brief fragments of information and allows our minds to fill in the blanks. But overall, he's quite clear about the kinds of girls he's attracted to, so a geek guy who shares his taste can easily map onto his pictures the perfect archetypal form.
Quite the accomplishment for a stick figure!
-FL
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Randall Munroe gives the audience only the most brief fragments of information and allows our minds to fill in the blanks.
I think you are giving too much credit to the artist and not enough credit to the never-had-a-woman Slashdot experience. LOL Yes if you're locked in a submarine for 6 months, stick figures start looking sexy.
Re:Blame XKCD for this one (Score:5, Funny)
I've always liked slim women.
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Re:Blame XKCD for this one (Score:4, Informative)
Income taxes are a fairly recent invention here in the US. We used to pay for the entirety of the Federal Government's budget (including the military!) solely on import/export taxes. Chew on that for a bit.
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Total annual value of all imports and exports is in the $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion range. Even at a rate of 10% , it wouldn't pay for half of the current military needs.
Re:Blame XKCD for this one (Score:5, Insightful)
Even at a rate of 10% , it wouldn't pay for half of the current military expenditures.
There. Fixed that for you.
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You didn't fix it. You just used an arrogant method of pointing out that your view is that the current needs are higher than you believe they should be.
I kind of expected that someone of a libertarian (or possible strongly liberal) viewpoint would respond. The liberal viewpoint is usually pretty insular, but the libertarian viewpoint believes that there would be vast prosperity for the nation. That vast prosperity would lead to numerous overseas ventures, which would either be protected by private armies
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I'm not sure why you got modded "insightful"; per wikipedia "total for defense spending to between $880 billion and $1.03 trillion in fiscal year 2010". Current import/export taxes by your numbers would pay for 300% of the millitary's budget, not less than 10% as you stated.
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Total value, not taxes on the value.
the article's examples are a pretty big range (Score:5, Insightful)
The proposed rule itself is pretty inscrutable (as usual, I suppose), but the article's examples are all over the map. Some of the examples seem like the small-scale sort of thing that would indeed cause inconvenience to ban: individual electronic devices sent air-freight from NewEgg to a consumer, or spare batteries in checked luggage. But it also mentions that existing regulations exempt "a pallet containing thousands of lithium batteries" from hazardous-material reporting and packaging requirements... and in that case the change doesn't seem too unreasonable to me, because maybe a pallet with thousands of batteries really should be subjected to the packaging and reporting requirements?
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So if you and a bunch of other travelers want to take spare batteries, get a REALLY large suitcase and stuff it with batteries. You just might reach the mass necessary to get an exemption. You may have to buy batteries specifically to meet this minimum weight. :)
Unscrewing the inscrutable (Score:2)
The proposed rule itself is pretty inscrutable (as usual, I suppose),
.
But don't worry - we can rely on all those helpful and well-educated airport ground staff to correctly and consistently interpret the law and offer balanced and sensible advice to travelers.
We can also re-assure the check-in person that we haven't got batteries at the same time we're assuring them that our luggage has never left our side (even in the trunk of the bus, or when we left it behind the desk at the hotel while we went for lunch); avoiding asking whether the rules on flammable liquids applies
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Those questions aren't (or weren't, I haven't been asked in a while) to help find dangerous items, they are to ensure that the airlines/law enforcement can hold you responsible for the contents of your luggage should they find such an item. If you try to claim that someone must have slipped it in when you weren't looking, they have you on record as affirming that there was no opportunity for that. At least that's the idea, given that they seem to have abandoned the practice in the last couple years, I gat
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At least that's the idea, given that they seem to have abandoned the practice in the last couple years, I gather it was pretty ineffective.
Or maybe its because they're busy replacing checkin staff with "express" check-in consoles...
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Some interesting stuff on fuel-cells, though.
and it's safer on carry-on bags? (Score:3, Insightful)
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One assumes that it'd be noticed quicker, and dealt with.
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I think an automated cargo sensor + suppression system would be far safer than relying on humans to properly execute something. It just wouldn't be cheaper.
For the people who won't watch the FAA video they advise using a water extinguisher or other extinguisher and dousing the batteries with water/liquid to cool them.
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About the same number that can do hyperlinks properly.
At least it explains what happens to all the laptops that get confiscated by border guards.
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.__.
I forgot I had extrans set from a previous post.
I died to an aircraft battery fire along with 138 other people.
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Watch the whole video. Some of the laptops in those videos would have been considered obsolete when Noah was deciding what laptop to take onto the Ark.
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The more likely problem is with overcharging Li ion batteries (another post had a link to a battery being charged at LAX and catching fire).Newer battery technology has a inherent property preventing overcharging caused failures. [technologyreview.com]
Re:and it's safer on carry-on bags? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're asking the wrong question. The right question is, "are spare alkaline or NiMH batteries in checked-in luggage are a safety risk?" The question can be answered objectively, rather than theoretically, because people have been stashing their batteries in checked-in luggage for decades. Right, batteries in checked-in luggage are an accident waiting to happen. We've been waiting, {and waiting,}* ... but nothing happened.
OT: I tried... (Score:2)
Visit www.growingbettersoftware.com to download your free copy of the book
I tried... and was greeted with
This Account Has Been Suspended Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.
You might want to fix your sig 'til you get that taken care of.
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Also, there is no mention in
Re:and it's safer on carry-on bags? (Score:5, Insightful)
Flight baggage are written with the convenience of the rules enforcer. Not the passenger.
If you think that through, it makes sense to do it that way.
The laptop battery installed in a laptop is properly stored. The laptop battery kicking around in somebody's suitcase is not necessarily so. Most accidents are a compound of events people thought unlikely: it is unlikely that a laptop battery will explode due to redundant safety features (unless it is a cheap knock-off, which are sometimes produced in the same Chinese factories as the real thing). It is unlikely that something stored properly could cause a problem. We count on that redundancy in case one of the assumptions fails. Don't forget that the ValuJet crash way back in the 90s was due to shipping the same oxygen generators that sit over every passenger's seat. In that storage setup, a faulty detonation results in the mask dropping in front of the passenger. In a crate of oxygen generators down in the old, it was fatal to everyone.
Here is a cautionary tale about storing batteries properly. Just recently I took three dead button batteries and put them in my pants pockets rather than get up and put them in the trash. I forgot I had them there and the next day I was sitting at the table and was surprised by an explosion in my pocket. It was small explosion by normal standards, but there is no such thing as a small explosion when it happens in your pants. (Gee that sounds like an aphorism.) I felt the electrolyte leaking onto my leg and immediately pulled my pants down. Good thing this wasn't at work. Now I knew I shouldn't have put those batteries in my pocket, but you could walk around with button batteries in your pocket every day of your life and never have something like that happen. I counted on it not happening in the fifteen minutes I expected to have them there. Everybody does things like that they know they shouldn't do. Now multiply that by thousands of times, and put tens of thousands of lives at risk.
Anyhow, the point is that we could train TSA guys to be able determine whether a laptop battery was safely stored. It wouldn't be hard. But that's one of hundreds, maybe thousands of cases. What you *really* need to do is to hire people who've gone through the equivalent of an associate's degree program on engineering and safety, put them through stringent application tests and continually retrain and restest them. Then you'd get much better security and much less hassle.
But guess what? We as a people would rather put up with the hassle than pay for safety AND convenience. That's not an entirely irrational point of view either. You've got to draw the line somewhere, and no matter where you draw that line, somebody will be inconvenienced unnecessarily. Take model rocket enthusiasts. They *should* in an ideal world, be able to take most of their stuff aboard a plane if it is properly stowed. But a ruleset that encompassed all such cases would be so large that the people enforcing them couldn't know them by heart. They'd be sifting through the rulebook on every passenger.
Naturally, the rules *could* be made better. But it's not easy to come up with rules that (a) inconvenience nobody unnecessarily and (b) can be implemented everywhere with affordable personnel and (c) don't cause traffic jams at security gates. Oh, yes and (d) which keep people safe. It takes years. It's been almost a decade since 9/11, and even if rules hadn't been side tracked by security theater, you wouldn't expect the rules to be perfect.
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Greetings and Salutations.
that was a stupid thing to do, indeed, but, it is an apples and oranges comparison with the batteries used in laptops. Those button batteries have NO protections against being shorted out, and, even a "dead" one has enough power left to provide an interesting moment - as you discovered. In the years I have been dealing with laptop batteries, I have yet to see one that does not have the contacts recessed into the body, such that the only w
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Of course it was a stupid thing to do. (Duh). But that's the kind of decision making you get when you have people who are in a hurry and thinking about something else.
And of course laptop batteries have multiple redundant safety measures. Except in the rare cases where they don't.
But what about batteries that look like laptop batteries but are not?
Is it reasonable to ask the luggage inspectors to look at a battery and see that it is a laptop battery and not some other kind of multi-cell battery pack? That
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How many people have died in aircraft fires caused by batteries?
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How is a pallet of Li-ion battery different from a pallet of oxygen generators?
Suggested additional measure (Score:3, Funny)
Ban crying babies . . . and their parents . . . (Score:3, Funny)
. . . I find them much more annoying than exploding Lithium Ion batteries . . .
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Even cigars? I would gladly pay double for this. It sounds more like "Heaven-Air" to me. But I want to be the only one smoking. I hate enclosed smoky rooms.
But I'd settle for reasonably-sized seats...and no children or young men on their way to Vegas to get crazy.
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"Spoken like someone who is too self-important and socially inept to ever get to the point of being a parent."
Spoken like a parent who cannot control their screaming snot monsters and thinks that having them around is a blessing for bystanders.
If it screams, stop it from screaming.
Re:Ban crying babies . . . and their parents . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Come on guys. Use your Geek fu. This isn't hard:
... duct tape.
Got batteries with accessible conductors - use duct tape to cover them.
Got annoying, noisy children or adults - use duct tape to cover them.
Got a terrorist trying to blow up the plane - tape 'em to the seat with
Just give out a roll to each flight attendant and you're golden. Nothing hard about this at all.
pain profit (Score:2, Insightful)
This would result in all the gadgets I use in flight (Nintendo DS, iPod, Laptop) to be stocked away, making airtravel an even bigger pain in the ass.
How many incidents with batteries occur anyway? The figures suggest that a small percentage of all batteries are potentially dangerous, and I've never seen figures of how many people die of these batteries. Small fires can be put out by the cabin crew, and it certainly sounds it's going to cost a lot more than it will generate in terms of safety
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How many incidents with batteries occur anyway?
It seems obvious that planes are falling out of the sky daily because of the innumerable detonating batteries but it's all hushed up by people in dark suits. Presumably so that the public won't panic.
Thankfully I've converted all my gadgets to using a steam-engine attached to a little turbine. Carrying a few bottle of highly flammable alcohol is much safer than those unpredictable batteries.
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Not sure about alkaline and NiMHs, but the cabin crew is not going to be able to put out a lithium battery that's on fire. They self oxidize. And what would you think they could do? Pour water over it?
From TSA: Primary lithium batteries cannot be extinguished with firefighting agents normally carried on aircraft, whereas lithium-ion batteries are easily extinguished by most common extinguishing agents, including those carried on board commercial aircraft.
Primary lithium cells are non-rechargeable cells (what devices use them?); most cells carried on board would be lithium ion. Given that a fire from one could be extinguished it seems that since it would be more easily discovered early in the cabin v
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Interesting. Lithium non-rechargeable sound like the ones I see in the grocery stores that are made as alkaline substitutes. The batteries I work with are Lithium-Ion rechargeable. I'd like to know how they expect to put out the rechargeable ones. So far as I know, they can't be put out. I would really like to know what they think could be used to extinguish them.
According to what I could find they recommend Halon extinguishers are effective, followed by cooling of the battery.
Relevant links I found are:
http://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_industry/airline_operators/airline_safety/safo/all_safos/media/2009/SAFO09013.pdf [faa.gov]
http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/batteries.shtm [tsa.gov]
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Utilize a Halon, Halon replacement or water extinguisher to extinguish the fire and prevent its spread to additional flammable materials.
Ok, this makes some sense. But as to the battery itself:
After extinguishing the fire, douse the device with water or other non-alcoholic liquids to cool the device and prevent additional battery cells from reaching thermal runaway.
... Ok, so the battery is on fire and they want you to douse it with water. A LITHIUM battery... Cripes, I'm thinking these guys don't know what they are talking about. By the way, here's the doc I deal with at work [everyspec.com]
Hm.. This page has some interesting things on it. [findarticles.com]
*Water may be used to extinguish packaging fires if batteries have not ruptured; water is not an effective extinguishing agent for a battery fire.
* For small fires involving the battery [extinguishing] media such as Lith-X or copper powder may be used, but should be applied with a long handled tool. Do not use CO2 or Halon directly on a battery fire as the exposed surface of the contained lithium may react with these materials.
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Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Forbid forbid forbid, that's all I hear coming out of the "land of the free" lately. I went to the US 2 months ago, and I have never heard "you can't" as often as I did when I was there.
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You can't be serious!
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Wait until they learn how firewall rules work... ^^
Then they can even brag about that “the only thing they do”, is allow things.
Not just alkaline and NiMH but Lithium also. (Score:5, Interesting)
Laptops, cell phones, iPods, etc. are all "machinery powered by lithium metal batteries". And it doesn't say anything about shipping or checked luggage, it says they shall be forbidden aboard passenger-carrying aircraft!!!
One could argue that they are not "machinery" in the conventional sense, but this is far too vague. In my experience, when the language of a law allows it to be enforced in some way, eventually it will be.
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Tell you what, I'll save you the trouble, shall I?
A101 A primary lithium battery or cell packed with or contained in equipment is forbidden for transport aboard a passenger carrying aircraft unless the equipment and the battery conform to the following provisions and the package contains no more than the number of lithium batteries or cells necessary to power the intended piece of equipment:
(
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Those are primary cells, not rechargables. The line is just before the one you list
A100 Primary (non-rechargeable) lithium batteries and cells are forbidden for transport aboard passenger carrying aircraft. Secondary (rechargeable) lithium batteries and cells are authorized aboard passenger carrying aircraft in packages that do not exceed a gross weight of 5 kg.
The interesting bit is that it's the packages that can't weigh more than 5kg. What's a package? Could be the battery shell, could be your laptop
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This is all the law as it was, not the new regulations being proposed.
Additionally, as you point out, this is only about primary cells, not lithium-ion rechargables. As such, your cite is completely irrelevant to a discussion of laptops.
The relevant rule-making makes clear that passengers can continue to carry laptops with them:
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In the rule-making actually at issue (PHMSA-2009-0095) [regulations.gov], rather than the one incorrectly linked by this page and others, the following paragraph is added to 49 C.F.R Section175.10:
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Although I still object to using UN standards. The UN is a political, not scientific body, and in my (admittedly limited) experience, they don't know which end is up.
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Just explain to them that everyone's digital watch is also powered by a lithium battery. They are sure to see the error of their ways and hand back your iPod and other devices... wait, why are they taking my watch now as well?
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Stop those terrorists!! (Score:2)
Because you never know when the next flight might be threatened by lithium-powered underwear
Hawaii will be especially hurt by this (Score:2, Insightful)
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I've never bought an item that arrived with the battery charged. Where's the energy to start the fire in a flat battery?
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War on Lithium's Terror (Score:2)
While he acknowledged the department's figure of 40 air transport-related incidents since 1991 involving lithium batteries and devices powered by lithium batteries, Kerchner said it is a small number in the context of the 3.3 billion lithium batteries transported in 2008 alone.
This is a pressing matter. 2.105263158 "incidents" per year is obviously unacceptable.
...the battery inside an already-padded box for a new notebook PC might need to be packaged in an additional fiberboard box along with extra shipping documents, he said.
Obviously this is a ploy set up by HP's packaging engineers [theregister.co.uk].
You're now limited to a maximum of two batteries with between 8 and 25 grams of lithium in them. They ... must be carried now in plastic bags... If you carry on three such batteries, security will take one of them away.
So forget bringing multiple 9-cell batteries on a plane. FedEx'ing the whole thing sounds better and better every day now, since TSA can sieze anything [upi.com] they want, including your data and now your expensive extended batteries.
shipping by air (Score:2)
So when buying stuff with batteries in, check the cheapest and slowest shipping option. If it comes by USPS or UPS Ground, it won't be a problem.
Batteries in security scans (Score:2)
What do batteries look like on security scans? Can the scanners not penetrate them? If the scanners have trouble with them, then I submit that this is a veiled attempt at stopping terrorists from hiding bombs in or behind lithium-ion batteries.
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What do batteries look like on security scans? Can the scanners not penetrate them? If the scanners have trouble with them, then I submit that this is a veiled attempt at stopping terrorists from hiding bombs in or behind lithium-ion batteries.
One of the cheapest materials known to blind security scanners is lead, and somehow, I seriously doubt a $200 netbook that weighs in at a "hefty" 20 ounces has that much damn lead in it.
Quoting the regulations from TFA (Score:2)
(d) Lithium batteries. Except as provided in Sec. 172.102, Special
Provision A101 of this subchapter, vehicles, engines and machinery
powered by lithium metal batteries that are transported with these
batteries installed are forbidden aboard passenger-carrying aircraft. *
Are electronic devices part of "vehicles, engines, and machinery?" I hope not. Else you can't use your ipod. 172.102 isn't in the linked article so I don't know what the special provisions are.
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You can find 172.102 at 172.102 Special provisions [setonresourcecenter.com].
It reads, in part:
cpap (Score:2)
found out I can't use the bloody thing now!
Am I reading this right? (Score:4, Informative)
Cartridges packed with equipment to be packed in intermediate packagings together with the equipment they are capable of powering.
The fuel cell cartridges and the equipment must be packaged with cushioning material or dividers or inner packaging so that the fuel cell cartridges are protected against damage that may be caused by the shifting or placement of the equipment and the cartridges within the outer packaging.
All the rule is basically doing is requiring that batteries are transported in such a way that they cannot short out. Either by putting them in the device they are made for (so your gameboy is safe) or by putting them in a special container (the big Li-Ion batteries for SLR's come like that in the box anyway).
After the Great Battery Scare last year with all those laptops combusting spontaneously their was little choice but to start with at least some regulation regarding the combustable nature of these batteries. The requirements are minimal and reasonable and quite frankly I have yet to see anything shipped commercially that doesn't meet those standards.
Are you referring to the same proposal? (Score:2)
Googling the quoted text got one hit, Hazardous Materials: Revision to Requirements for the Transportation of Batteries and Battery-Powered Devices, etc.; Correction [vlex.com].
I don't speak bureaucrat well enough to be sure, but this seems to be a year old rule, one that is already in force.
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As someone fluent in Regulatese, I can tell you that you're entirely correct. The correct rule-making is at PHMSA-2009-0095 [regulations.gov]. I'm wondering if I should write the editor to see if a correction can be made, but I'm thinking that Slashdot apathy will prevent too many people from submitting comments to the wrong docket entry.
Mod Parent UP! (Score:2)
Don't fall for scare-mongering industry whores that masquerade as journalists.
"Sec. 171.12 North American shipments.
(a) * * *
(6) Lith
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I'd actually say it's more likely ignorance than malice; I bet the author of the original article searched Regulations.gov for "lithium batteries" and linked to the first docket they found from PHMSA.
One of the synergy bonuses you get with a proficiency in Regulatese is the knowledge that Regulations.gov is terribly organized, so I went to PHMSA's website and pulled up their NPRM section.
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After the Great Battery Scare last year with all those laptops combusting spontaneously their was little choice but to start with at least some regulation regarding the combustable nature of these batteries.
The "Great Battery Scare", in caps!? Lol ...oh yes, I remember how everyone I know was so terrified of batteries all last year. Exploding all over the place as they were. I was having so many nightmares about batteries. Communities were crying out all over the country to their leaders, do something, do something about these darn batteries terrifying us all. YMBFJ.
Seriously, this desperate need to paranoidly cry for 'regulation' in the face of just about any completely statistically insignificant 'threat' sh
Wrong Rulemaking is Linked in Summary (Score:2)
As anyone who can read could tell you, the rule-making linked in the summary is for a final rule. The final rule isn't open for comment anymore - it's already published, already effective, and would require a new notice-and-comment cycle in order to change.
The rulemaking PHMSA is proposing is at PHMSA-2009-0095 [regulations.gov]. PHMSA is not required to listen to any comments posted on the link above, because that docket is closed. Therefore, if you want your comments to be read, you should use the above link.
Because the an
Exploding batteries? (Score:2)
So, the NSA finally classified Sony as terrorists?
From now on... (Score:2)
...I will only fly completely naked.
Let‘s see how long they can stand that, before they overturn the laws. :P
But I can raise the bar too, by employing this technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9yLKnC5bho [youtube.com]
Nothing new... (Score:2)
When laptop batteries began exploding left and right if you looked at them wrong, I gave my father a call.
He worked for many years at the Lithium Corporation of America, where they mined and refined Lithium ore for all sorts of purposes (shoe rubber, axle grease, pool chlorine, etc, etc..).
I asked him about the exploding batteries, expecting a tirade on how bad manufacturing was to blame, rather than lithium.
Instead, he surprised me with a rant about the old-old lithium batteries - small things about half t
This will never get passed (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know why people worry about this kind of thing being made law. Why am I not worried? Think about it.
Who are the people who use planes all the time? Business people, government workers.
And who are the people who need to use their laptops on all those plane trips? Business people, government workers.
And who are the people in real control of all of the laws in the country? That's right, the wealthy business people, the lawmaking government workers.
In 2010+, No law or regulation is ever going to happen that makes air travel require you to not have a working computer. It is just not realistic given the players involved.
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As far as I can tell, the specialized batteries are used to maximize the power density in small, power-hungry devices.
Example: I have two digital cameras from Canon. The older one (A80) uses standard AA batteries. However, it is a bit larger and less capable than the newer one (SD600), which uses a special Li-Ion battery. I
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If only they'd invent a standard battery a little smaller than an AA. They could call it an AAA or something.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Li-Ion batteries are available in standard sizes as well, some are AAA sized. They run $3 - $6 online. Many of those special batteries are, in fact, just aaa or aa sized LiIon batteries sealed into a proprietary carrier and marked up a few thousand percent (since the new "battery" is oh-so-special). The only thing that's "special" about the chargers for those is that they are designed to fit that proprietary carrier (and ONLY that carrier) and so they get marked up as well.
Looking at the battery for the SD6
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"I can't see the need for special batteries for every single device. How is that progress? (And Apple and Logitech have one step stupider and made devices with irreplacable batteries)."
It's progress toward Vendor Lock, nothing else. Volume makes it cheap for vendors and easy to inflict on the public.
Desktop computing is the last holdout of standard form-factors, but desktops don't have batteries.
"Perhaps a battery size standard law is required instead?"
From the POV of economic production, replacement, and b
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Not really. It would just be one more stupid bureaucratic idea that would impede progress to very little useful gain. You would end up freezing design at one level with no ability to change other than to get the law / administrative order changed. You do realize that most of the battery packs you complain about are really pretty standard under the sh [electronics-lab.com]
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Do you mean that cargo imports from China or other manufacturers locations are dangerous to cargo planes and they don't properly use bubble wrap to ensure these devices don't collide between each other?
What I don't get is, if they were dangerous, how did they become so widely used in the market and why just until now they figured out that it could cause an accident?
Re: (Score:2)
Your babbling comment will likely be ignored, because you don't actually address the substance of the regulation. It will also be readily apparent that you didn't read the preamble to the rule, since it specifically cites examples of incidents where lithium batteries have caused fires on aircraft.