I will be taking a trip to visit some family in Minnesota/Wisconsin next week - we will be staying on a house boat and there will be an opportunity to get some good and fun flash lighting in!
That being said - there are 2 things to keep in mind - I will be packing light - carry on luggage only - so my space is VERY limited as to what I can bring. Whatever I bring will have to be small and compact, and fit in either my carry on luggage or my wifes carry on luggage…. the other issue - or maybe its not really an issue is bringing lithium ions onto a plane. I saw a few threads on here and read the regulations - it appears as long as the batteries are in my carry on luggage and I dont have a large quantity of batteries - this is a nonissue. Perhaps some of you regular flyers can confirm. I am flying out of JFK if that matters.
Some of the possible lights I am considering:
D40a-vn - neutral and modded to 4.5 amps - and its nimh so no lihium issue here
Ea4 - also nimh and a great compact light
Convoy L4/c8 - compact and lots of good quality light
Nitecore ec25nw - compact and I just love this light for some reason
perhaps a little more ambitions - my modded skyray king or modded tm11 with 4x 18650 - too many batteries? I dont think so… I am bringing my laptop which has 6x 18650s in its pack.
I will also be taking a nitecore i4 - so bringing different chemistry lights and recharging wont be a problem.
sigh.
maybe I should just ship my x60vn to my in-laws and use that
bringing clothes…well, there is your problem right there! Fill the bag w lights man!
Bring some battery cases along or just start them out in cases…I have had both experiences…but never have been in danger of loosing any batteries.
The worst/funniest time was in Fresno CA when I was asked to make the lights work…more to kill boredom on TSA part and the other I suppose to make sure the batteries were actually batteries and not something worse…
LOL, a land boat. You better take lights because the land sharks are real bad out there.
If the boat is white, it will probably still be an issue when your on the boat (and not treading with the land sharks). On my boat (not house, just 24” long”, the boat itself is the biggest reflector of spill. The water mostly absorbs the light or deflects the light down beam.
You can bring a many li-ions you want, as long as they are in the lights. They don’t allow many spare li-ions though, two for Korean flights, for example.
TSA website
“Lithium Batteries: Safety and Security
Lithium Batteries
Lithium-ion batteries, often found in laptop computers, differ from primary lithium batteries, which are often used in cameras. Some newer AA-size batteries are also primary lithium.
While there is no explosion hazard associated with either kind of battery, the Federal Aviation Administration has studied fire hazards associated with both primary and lithium-ion cells, and their extensive research is publicly available. As a result of this research, the FAA no longer allows large, palletized shipments of these batteries to be transported as cargo on passenger aircraft.
The research also shows that an explosion will not result from shorting or damaging either lithium-ion or primary lithium batteries. Both are, however, extremely flammable. 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.
TSA has and will continue to work closely with the FAA on potential aviation safety and security issues, and TSA security officers are thoroughly and continually trained to find explosive threats. TSA does not have plans to change security regulations for electronic devices powered by lithium batteries.
Latest revision: 24 January 2013”
+1 on filling the bag with lights and batteries. You don't need clothes in WI/MN. They all just run around nekked there. Watch out fer injuns and rattlers.....
Sadly, we in NE do fall victim to some geographical predjudices…
In NYC, a friend tells me he can see forever, meaning a low air pollution day or across the Hudson River to NJ (‘bout 5 miles total). Another one, who lives in ’upstate’ NY, about 25 miles N of the city line (he can see the skyline on one of those unpolluted air days!) refers also, to ‘upstate NY’, which in his case is just about the Canadian Border…about 290 miles N of him.
In CT, well, gosh. 50-100 miles in any direction from the middle of the darn place and you are in someone elses STATE - RI, MA or NJ or even, heck, across LI Sound back to NY state again…just about clear across the Ocean!
not saying you are wrong, but when I left the country last year around christmas, I tossed my 18650’s in my checked baggage because I thought the opposite was true, and got no hassle at all. Even going through customs. YMMV
I recently traveled to Florida w/ several lights and spare 18650 cells. What I did was to put tape over the ends of each cell, then put them in two cell cases and taped the case closed. I also taped the ends of the cells in the lights and put the lights in a padded case. TSA screening scanned my carry-on, looked at the lights and that was it.
