Hi this is Jay P. Morgan.
I'm heading off another great adventure here on The Slanted lens.
But the issue that always comes up is traveling with batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries especially.
So we're gonna talk about the things you can and can't do when you're traveling with lithium-ion
batteries, what you can take with you, how you can protect them and the process you need
to do to be able to solve things for TSA.
Let's get started and see what we can do.
But seriously, let's talk about batteries and flying with them on the airplane.
Our segment today is sponsored by Indipro, a great maker of really high powered batteries
for the photo and video industry.
We'll talk more about them as we go through our segment today, but our issue is what batteries
can you fly with.
You can still fly with all of your normal triple A, double A, CD, it doesn't matter.
TSA does like you to have these in their original containers and not just loose in a bag because
they're afraid of them shorting out with one another.
But you can carry as many of these as you want in your carry-on, as many of these as
you want in your luggage.
No restriction on these whatsoever.
Really the issue becomes lithium-ion batteries.
Since the Galaxy explosion, everyone's super concerned about lithium-ion.
The reason is is inside of a battery, and this is an Indipro 170 watt battery, Inside
of the battery there are two compartments or chambers, between them is a thin piece
of plastic.
If that thin piece of plastic gets breached they start a chemical reaction in them and
they will explode.
It's extremely rare.
Consumer reports say about one in a million of these will fail, whereas one in 13,000
is the likelihood that you'll be struck by lightning.
But that doesn't change the fact that we've had Galaxies that have exploded and had problems
and so now lithium-ion are under really close scrutiny.
When you're traveling with lithium-ion batteries, in my mind they fall in like three categories:
one, what you can carry on to the airplane, two, what you can check in your baggage in
the airplane, and three, batteries who are already in components and laptops and pieces
of equipment.
Let's talk about each of those.
First off let's start with those who are in components.
This is a Baja strobe head.
This Baja strobe head has a lithium-ion battery in it.
That lithium-ion battery is in the Baja strobe head.
I put these in check-in luggage all the time.
I have a big bag of [inaudible 00:02:21] Bajas, it's like four or six heads, they go on the
airplane, there's no issue whatsoever.
The reason there's not an issue with batteries installed in equipment, is because most all
equipment including laptops with large extended life batteries, the batteries are under 100
watts.That is the secret number.
One hundred watts or less makes it an issue that TSA is not concerned about.
This really includes all the camera batteries that you're used to, all of your batteries
for any still cameras.
Even most your motion picture cameras that can't contain a small battery like this, they
are under 100 watts.
This is a camera battery to the Canon C200, it's 45 watts.
Even the extended life battery is under 100 watts.
So those in a device, nothing to worry about.
Installed in the device goes in the airplane, under the airplane, on top of the airplane,
wherever you wanna put it in the airplane, that's good.
Number two now though is, I have my Baja and I want to bring spare batteries for my Baja.
Now this is under 100 watts, but I can't check this, it's gotta go into my personal bag.
And the reason is you just can't have these down in the compartment because they're afraid
about them shorting or touching or doing something will cause them to explode.
I do the same thing with all the batteries, even though it's absolutely no problem to
travel with the small batteries that run your cameras is from a C200, you know, it's 45
watts.
But even though you can you just can't check these, you have to carry them with you.
I always carry my cameras with me as my carry-on when I get on the airplane, so I have a bag
that has my cameras in it and I've got a bag that has, if I'm traveling this way, batteries
in it.
And it depends on how many of these I'm traveling with.
If I'm just taking my cameras then all my batteries will go in with my cameras, or if
only have one or two of these extra 100 watt batteries, I'll put this in my camera case
as well.
But if I've got a huge shoot and I need a ton of batteries then I'll carry a case that
has batteries in it.
Now remember these can only be 100 watts or less, and you can carry as many of them as
you want onto the airplane without any problem.
That's why these batteries are so nice.
If you're using higher-end video equipment, these 98 watt batteries can be carried on
to the airplane, you can bring on as many of them as you want, you just...I mean as
long as your weight doesn't get too...can't bring 500 pounds of these on to the airplane.
As long as it's for personal use and for production, you carry as many of these as you want.
You can have 8 or 10 of them in a case, and you can take these 98 watt ones.
If they get over 98 watts, we now go to the third category.
And that is batteries bigger than 100 watts.
And TSA says you may carry two batteries over 100 watts but not to exceed 160 watts.
And they give you permission to carry two of those with you to carry on the airplane.
You may not check them, they have to be in your personal carry-on and you may carry two
of them.
A battery like this that's 170 it's just a little bit too big.
Battery like this that is 270, just a little too big.
I love these 270 batteries, actually.
When you're running lights, the LED lights, these see you'll run a light all day long,
that's why I use them, that's why I love them, but I can't fly with them.
We do have a document online from Indipro that shows that this battery is approved for
TSA to be able to fly with it.
Take that document with you, print it out, carry it with you, and when they ask your
TSA, you got a whole box of like ten of these or five of these or three of these and they
look at them and they go, "Wait a minute, you can't fly with all these lithium-ion batteries."
You show them the documentation from Indipro saying these batteries are...meet all the
criteria, they are not exceeding 100 watts, they're allowed to go on a carry-on.
And they will allow you to carry these things on.
Anytime you can throw paperwork at TSA, it shows that you've thought this through, you
didn't just make a random decision, and you have...these batteries meet their criteria,
and they do.
Now when you take these on the airplane you can't just take them onto the airplane because
that's gonna make TSA very, very uncomfortable.
How do you prepare your batteries to go on the airplane?
Even if they are these 98 watt batteries, they have contacts.
The contacts make TSA nervous, like well this can...a piece of metal can touch this, it
can cause something to short or have a problem.
There's three ways you can package these to carry them with you on the airplane.
Number one, put them in their original box.
It says 98 watts on it, it declares exactly what it is, and because it's in that cardboard
box no one is gonna be bothered, it's not gonna have anything touch the terminals, it's
not gonna be a problem.
That's the first and easiest one, put it back in its original packaging.
If you don't have that, then number two is very simple, you simply take a piece of electrical
tape.
That creates a protection.
Now if the TSA person says, "Well, aren't these terminals?"
No, those are not terminals, those are just the hanging device that allows the gold mount
to go on to its different devices you use it on.
The terminals are recessed right in here and that's completely covered and protected now.
And number three is a Ziploc bag.
Put them in a Ziploc bag, that gives you protection, TSA is gonna feel like you've thought about
it, and they're not gonna bother you if you put them in a Ziploc bag.
Same with these, a little bit of tape.
It's just a precautionary measure, they may not call you out on it, they may not say anything,
but it's possible they will.
The more of these you carry, the more likely they are going to say something about it.
Small batteries like for your cameras, you throw those into the camera bag, they're not
gonna say anything.
These kinds of batteries they are not going to give you an issue.
But if you're concerned, a little tape over the terminals and these are ready to fly.
There you have it, there's the three ways to protect your batteries when you're gonna
put them on the airplane, just so that you can get through TSA quickly and not have an
issue.
Just a little call out here for Indipro, that's the sponsor for our segment today.
We know how to fly with our batteries now.
The reason I love these batteries, there's several things.
First off they've got a great D-Tap on here if you want to take power off from their gold
mount batteries.
I use gold mount because I just like the mount.
I like the way it sets, but they do V-mount as well as gold mount.
And also I love the fact that all these batteries have a USB port, so you can charge your phone
off from this thing.
For a long time you can charge your phone off from this battery.
I love these because I use them on LEDs, I use them on cine cameras, I even use them,
and probably one of my favorite things, because the A7R2 has such a terrible battery in it,
there's a battery plate that they make, Indipro makes.
This battery plate goes on the back of your rig, it goes into the battery compartment,
and now I can just simply put my gold mount battery right there, sits on my tripod, and
I've got a ton of battery life to be able to run the the A7R2.
It will run this thing all day long which is so nice.
I mean in this camera especially because the battery is so bad, you really need that setup
and that's a simple little inexpensive setup.
Indipro also makes a D-Tap charger for these, which is really a nice setup, it's a small
compact charger if you're gonna travel.
This just simply plugs into the D-Tap on the battery and plug it in the wall, charge away.
That's a really nice little item to travel with rather than having to carry those great
big double battery chargers.
I think this is a much simpler system.
They got a great LED indicator here on the side so you can see what kind of power's left
in your battery, which is really nice.
They have a great construction so they actually can be dropped and they're not going to disintegrate
on you, which is a good thing I have on set because that seems to happen all the time.
If on the back of your battery it doesn't have the watts, it'll have the volts and the
amps.
Volts times amps equals watts, that's an easy way to figure out what the wattage of your
battery is.
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