Bad news for Lipo users

[hydromaddicted]

To All Saft Lithium or Lithium Ion Battery Customers

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The DOT Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has published a Notice of
Proposed Rule Making, the subject above, which will, if enacted, make shipping all lithium
batteries and equipment containing lithium batteries above approximately 1 Ah nearly
impossible by air shipment in the U.S. and much more costly. The NPRM was published in the
Federal Register Volume 75, No.6/ Monday, January 11, 2010/ Proposed Rules starting on
page 1302. Many of the associations and organizations for lithium batteries, electronics and
transportation have been preparing detailed and complex comments to the NPRM. Your
associations and organizations are almost certainly going to participate in the comment
opportunity. If you do not have an organization alliance you can comment directly via this
address:
U. S. Department of Transportation
Docket Operations (M-30)
Ground Floor, Room W12-140
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590-0001
There is also a website which is not user friendly. Comments are due before end of day 12
March, 2010. Extensions have been requested and denied. Compliance is proposed at 75
days! This is the most broad reaching and deleterious Rule Making ever proposed on batteries.
It will reach into every household in America and will significantly increase costs and slow down
commerce. It is important that everyone be aware and be actively opposing this NPRM.
Finally I strongly urge you to talk with your Congressional delegation about this topic. At least in
theory, they are the final voice for all of us. Their version of this is H.R. 4016, a related and
equally bad bill.
Sincerely Glen V. Bowling
Vice President of Sales and Marketing

[Jim Caldwell]

What are they trying to do that we should be concerned?

[hydromaddicted]

Here's the proposal

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-281.pdf

[Twinpowered]

Ok, how many of your packs are over 30Kg? And if you were to get aboard that plane, how safe would you feel when you noticed someone just (literally) dropped a pallet of lipo cells out of another plane, to pack it into yours?

[hydromaddicted]

Yes it still states 30kg total but they talk later about limit of the size of the cell in the package.

(1) For a lithium metal cell, the
lithium content is not more than 1 g per
cell and the aggregate lithium content is
not more than 2 g per battery and, for
a lithium ion cell or battery, the watthour
rating is not more than 20 Wh per
cell and not more than 100 Wh per
battery. These limits may be increased
to 5 g per lithium metal cell or 25 grams
per lithium metal battery and 60 Wh per
lithium ion cell and 300 Wh per battery
when transported by highway or rail
only;


20Wh per cell AND 100Wh per battery =
1S to 5S = 5400mAh
6S = 4500mAh
8S = 3370mAh
10S = 2700mAh
12S = 2250mAh

It's all really confusing stuff that surely means sooner or later the price will go up.

[hydromaddicted]

Found this already

Hyperion is already splitting higher capacity packs to meet regulations. Packs over 4000 mah, (4 amp hour), are being split. I.e., a 6s, 5000mah battery will be split in the same package into 2 3s packs and require a y harness to connect. See this link, http://media.hyperion.hk/dn/g3lipo/

[Allan]

Sounds like they are a bit out of synch with the technology. I've not seen a modern cell burst in to flames.

[Twinpowered]

Seems we'll have to go for fuel cells. Of course the hydrogen used in those is WAY safer than that pesky lithium

[KILLER V]

This is not new news. I have been getting 12s and 10s 10,000 mah one piece batteries made and shipped for a couple of years. They stopped shipping these large packs, due to the amount of Lipo content, and have been sending broken down batteries for about 8 months already. Lipo

Just what I have seen.

V

[action jackson]

am i thinking wrong but do we fly in all the high grade batteries of high voltage, or doesnt the u.s.a. companies make these high voltage cells that we can just ship by truck any place in the u.s.a. or will that effect truck delivery also.
thanks for your time

[F1tunnelhull]

So just when do we start to see the production of the hyperion 5500 - 6500 series cells stop?

I want to get a batch of them in a few months but how long have we got?

There must be some serious TOOL SQUEEZER in a pen pushing job that came up with the crap idea of shipping less lipos and smaller W/Ah. Would be interested to see what cell capacity of my new laptop computer is.

Dave

[jollyroger]

BTW The shipping fees have gone sky high as well.
I order packs from Aircraft World out of Japan(Nippon Dave) and the price for shipping via FEDEX jumped to 42.00 for just 4 packs!! Even though these lipos were last year's production, the price he was selling them for made a very attractive buy. But now, I dunno....