I have some 18650’s taken from laptop battery packs to ship and I want to be legal and I am concerned about innocent people dying in an accident
here are the postal regulations I see on the USPS website:
Without the equipment they operate (individual batteries in originally sealed packaging)
surface……air…….weight limitation
Mailable Mailable No more than 3 batteries
if someone can read this http://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c3_026.htm and tell me why I am wrong I would love to hear so. I have batteries I want to ship and have not due to above regulations. Please enlighten me ! Be FACTUAL and with AUTHORITY, no guesses, peoples lives are at stake
recovered cells are not in the original packaging so my interpretation is you can’t ship them, even if some companies do it.
Mailed Without Equipment. The following additional restrictions apply to the mailing of secondary cells or batteries without equipment (individual batteries):
The secondary lithium cells and batteries must be mailed in “the originally sealed packaging”, and the package may contain no more than three batteries………………………… The sealed packages of batteries must be separated and cushioned to prevent short circuit, movement, or damage……………… The shipment must be contained in a strong enough sealed package to prevent crushing of the package or exposure of the contents during normal handling in the mail. The outside of the package must be marked on the address side “Package Contains Lithium-ion Batteries (no lithium metal).”
If you follow the letter of the law (ie what it says in the link you posted )
Then I’d say you can’t post them, as they are not in their original packaging, not that the original packaging would be much use anyway, they are laptop pulls and probably arrived at the laptop battery manufacturers in huge boxes ready to be put into laptop packs
You are obviously concerned about sending li-ion batteries by post, could you not have sent then as a laptop pack rather than taking them out and sending then as separate batteries ?
If your concerned about li-ion safety, I would guess you are sending then to someone who understands the dangers, so surly they would be capable of breaking open a laptop pack and harvesting the batteries, that way you could send then as a complete pack which seems to be an exceptal way of posting them ( people and companies post laptop packs day in day out)
It’s simple, if it worries you that much don’t post them
That said if your not posting then overseas, I can see no safety issues if you discharged them to a safe minimum voltage, tape the battery terminals with insulating tape, wrap them well and individually in soft packing material, then pack then in a strong packing box and tape it up well. At the end of the day they are batteries, not nitroglycerin
The packaging seems to be the key sticking point to ground shipping domestically.
From [Federal Register Volume 72, Number 193 (Friday, October 5, 2007)]:
So it doesn’t need to be retail packaging and original is vague. It’s certainly easy to meet the intent of adequate packaging. It’s clearly possible to exceed the “we just put them in a plastic blister pack without much though” level of protection. Properly marked and reasonably protected they’ll be going by ground without being combined accidentally with large quantities of other lithium as long as USPS does their jobs; safety isn’t really an issue. Since it doesn’t have to be retail packaging the original part gets fuzzy… eventually every sealed package starts with someone packaging it “originally.”
You likely won’t get someone speaking with “authority” here. Even a USPS employee is unlikely to give an official answer here. Get thee to the post office. I’d take the references and probably an example of the internal packaging. Get them on the clock to make a decision on the application of their rules.
That portion appears to address ‘Primary lithium cells’, like CR123s, not li ion which are secondary cells, ie: 16340/18650 etc. What they are saying is that primary lithiums for example an Energizer CR123, as long as they are ‘sealed’ in a package, should be OK to post even if its not the original retail packaging.
Ask them what their rules really mean if you're really worried about shipping li-ion .Asking here is just asking for conjecture of what the above statements really mean .
Don’t waste your time. They don’t know and don’t have a clue. I spend two hours with a postmaster trying to ship a light with an 18650 in it. I brought a copy of their rules that explicitly says you can ship it if it is installed in the device and how to mark the package. That only works if the postmaster can read and isn’t a drooling idiot. I think he went up three levels of the postal idiot chain of command before succumbing to my charms…
I've been to three postmasters in three different post offices and all three of them had different views. None of them could actually tell me what is right and what is wrong. One said he would not knowingly let any li-ion batteries ship, other than ground transportation, but he couldn't specify what "proper packaging" should be. Another said that they could be shipped in original packaging within the continental US only and the third said if I packaged them well and didn't declare them, no one would really know.
I'm not joking. If the post office people can't tell me, it means there is no way to "legally ship them", since they can't even agree on what to do.
All you can do is go to your local post office and ask, but that doesn't mean you will get the straight story. Most of the regular postal employees, (at the counters), I have talked to, think that no battery containing lithium can be shipped.
I’ve been shipping the exact same packages. On one I’ve was charged anywhere from 49 cents to $3. Another sent to England was charged anywhere from $6 to $19. Bastards…
Correct but… it’s same vague language I was attempting to clarify. The specific piece from the secondary cells portion (mailed without equipment) is:
As opposed to:
“Originally sealed packaging” is a requirement regardless of primary or secondary, when mailed without the equipment. What that means is really the only unclear part. The primary reference was the best I could find to try to clarify and it didn’t do much.
Secondary cells must be in the ORIGINAL packaging, ie: the laptop pack. My guess, is that they will not make a distinction for there being X amount of actual 18650 cells in a HP pack and say Y number of 18650s in an Acer pack. The pack, is the original packaging and what they mean when they say ‘battery’ in the limit of 3. Id also suggest that would mean that those 3 complete laptop packs would be classed the same as say 3 loose Sony VTC5 batteries. Bureaucracy being as it is.
Primaries have some room to move now and can be repackaged by a 3rd party to on sell, up to 11lbs with equip, or 5lbs without.
Just my take on what Ive read. I havent read all of it though.
This is the really questionable stuff IMO. Folks here will tell you what this is no problem probably, but I doubt most retailers would have a clue (unless written on the pack) in regard to laptop batteries they supply. And Im not sure where on a CR123 information regarding the demands of 1 and 2 is found
1 Each primary cell must not contain more than 1g lithium content.
2 Each primary battery must not contain more than 2g aggregate lithium content.
3 Each secondary cell must not exceed more than 20 Wh (Watt-hour rating) per cell.
4 Each secondary battery must not exceed 100 Wh per battery.
Clearly some knowledgeable people wrtote what was aksed of them, but getting it implemented with any degree of certaintly or consistency, good luck.
My closest post office is the post office from hell… except that it even embarrasses Satan. I think they send all their rejects to work there. I have seen it close two hours before it is supposed to. The line NEVER moves. I went there once, there were 5 people in line. Said no way. Drove 5 miles to another post office, mailed stuff. Came back and checked. The same 5 people were still in line. And don’t even think about going there on a Monday…
Original question was about USA domestic shipping per my understanding. International surface shipping is SLOW as has been widely discussed in the group over the last several months as most post offices no longer allow air shipment of lithium batteries of any sort. If you are ready to wait 60 to 90 days for delivery do surface shipping. These days domestically in the USA almost any shipping class may end up going by air if there is space available so actual shipping method is unpredictable. Exceptions MIGHT be any package marked as surface mail only due to postal regulations regarding the contents.
USPS lithium battery regulations do not make much sense to me as “original packaging” for Lithium batteries varies from a 20 pack option for Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries to a strip of ten shrink wrapped batteries for Titanium Innovations CR123A and CR2 primaries to individual cardboard boxes or two packed batteries in a plastic hard case for 18650 batteries. All packaging I have received and apparently “Original” by the PO definition. How about a retailer like Mountain Electronics which buys Lithium Ion secondary batteries in bulk and packs them for retail sale and shipment. Is their packaging “original” for retail sales and shipping purposes?
