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MillimeterShoot Expertise: Heart of a Li-ion
Mar 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Barry Braverman
Understanding the new air-travel regulations for your Lithium-ion batteries.
Although they’re crucial for many shooters, Lithium-ion batteries can cause problems when it comes to air travel. The 200Wh Frezzi model pictured, for instance, would not be allowed on a plane because it exceeds the 160Wh maximum set by the TSA.
It's no fun anymore. Not for me anyway. Air travel is more than ever for the birds: high ticket prices, cramped seats, dreadful to non-existent food, sky-high excess (and standard) baggage charges, interminable security lines. And now there's something else for pro shooters to get charged up about: what to do about our Lithium-ion batteries.
We all love them, of course. Pound for pound, they're very efficient given their horsepower. So what if they don't last more than 500 charging cycles? We can live with that. They're low-maintenance, and they don't lose much charge sitting in our travel cases for two weeks or on a shelf at home waiting for their next call to duty. That's a big advantage for the itinerant shooter; their self-discharge rate is half that of nickel-type batteries.
At 68Wh, this IDX Endura E-7S would be acceptable in carry-on luggage only.
Li-ion is everywhere these days. In every type of gadget and gizmo, if it beeps, burps, or percolates, it's probably powered by a Lithium-ion battery. From cell phones to cordless drills to the cameras we use every day, we live in an era of lithium-powered everything. Lithium is good.
But wait. Our good friend that has served us so unfailingly for so long has an onerous dark side. In 2006, a man in a house trailer in the Midwest went to bed one night and left his cell phone charging. The Li-ion battery in it overheated and exploded and burned his double-wide to the ground.
There's also the case last year of the 100,000 batteries that Sony recalled after several Dell computers went thermal, including one in Japan that reportedly exploded in the middle of an electronics technology conference.
The batteries that power our professional cameras, monitors, and LED lights are of particular concern. Denny Clairmont of Clairmont Camera in Los Angeles cites his own experience several years ago of a battery left charging in a camera truck overnight. A fire erupted and destroyed his $100,000 investment. Fletcher Chicago has its tale of woe as well; in that case, the company opted to replace its entire inventory of Li-ion with nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) after a “thermal runaway” wreaked havoc at Essanay Studio and Lighting. The flames from the exploding battery were said to have shot 10ft. into the air at a temperature of more than 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Given these cautionary tales, Li-ion batteries must be accorded due respect.
Proper care and feeding
Responsible handling of Li-ion batteries should begin day one and through their entire life. A well-cared-for battery is less likely to become a news story.
Using a faulty charger or running a battery down too low can damage and prematurely age the Li-ion cells. As the cells age, their output voltage drops, resulting in an increase in internal heat as the battery struggles to maintain the current as demanded by the load. A fully depleted Li-ion battery produces a tremendous amount of heat as it is recharged and must come back up quickly. This is why it is never advisable to run batteries down to a point of total exhaustion.
Rental batteries are particularly prone to catastrophic failure because they are worked extremely hard and are more likely to be left on charge for long periods of time. Owing to larger and higher-density imagers in today's cameras with ever more powerful processors, higher-capacity batteries of 160Wh and up are in greater demand. It doesn't take much to raise the heat inside of a battery pack to an unsafe level.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.