Saw this today where New York City passed their legislation that was proposed some time back regarding the requirement of safe-and-sound battery packs in mobility products like bikes and scooters. They’ll be requiring all products to have the UL listing for this category. That’s a good thing overall but it will probably affect what’s available in the market and prices may rise (UL and other certs cost money to obtain, not to mention making sure products and electrical designs meet the requirements to begin with).
I think this is notable and along with other trends like “safer” lithium ion cells and packs using proprietary configurations and whatnot, it may be a harbinger of things to come, could even trickle down to cell availability and flashlights at some point. Too many bad products and that resulted in too many fires, but most importantly they resulted in deaths, and whenever someone dies there are so many red flags and such that come out of the woodwork. Pouch cells with laptops and other products weren’t enough, but it looks like the many-celled e-bikes and scooters finally broke the camel’s back.
There’s that saying, “So goes California, so goes the nation”, but it can apply to NYC as well, especially when it comes to fire codes and product safety (due mostly to the population density and resulting offset of “importance” compared to a more global view across the country).
Teach your friends about lithium ion safety and smarts. Too many idgits and too many unjustifiably fearful folks out there and that doesn’t help the situation any.
Given the circumstances - NYC’s density, difficulty of extinguishing a lithium-ion battery fire relative to most other types of fires, and the considerable attention given to said incidents - I’m not entirely surprised that NYC is considering regulating them. UL certification will surely hurt availability (at least in the short term), raise prices, and decimate DIY/hobby builds.
Hard to say how this will shake out. The power tool industry is still largely all about mechanically robust cylindrical cells vs pouch cells. Laptops long ago moved to pouch cells. Automotive OEMs are variable - until recently only Tesla was using 18650, 21700, 4680 cells - while every other automaker developed their own flavors of larger prismatic or pouch cells, however there are reports that GM is abandoning its Ulltium pouch cells in favor of 4680 packs in the future thus cylindrical cells may remain a viable option - just not necessarily in the usual smaller formfactors common to flashlights.
Not sure there’s any stopping the train at this point. For every flashlight or vape that experiences exothermic self-disassembly there will be an order of magnitude more sketchy powerbanks, low-end ‘lithium generators’, hoverboards, scooters, e-bike battery packs that release copious magic smoke with fire.
Oh well more business to shops outside nyc, which the legislation does not affect. from any point of nyc, it takes 1.5 hours or less drive to get to upstate, long island, NJ. The restriction is only for commercial sales within nyc, noting about bringing for personal use from outside nyc.
That may be changing very soon. When DeWalt introduced their Powerstack pouches that changed the game and so far there don’t seem to be any disadvantages at all. Milwaukee has been quietly developing this for quite some time but still dragging their feet. Once they release their flavor it’s likely that the industry will shift heavily in that direction, and TTI may let it trickle down from Milwaukee into their other tool brands (Ryobi, possibly influence on Ridgid, and all the many others that come out of their doors). Nobody loves the round cell anymore and it brought us so much! Last summer’s fling.
Round cell has an advantage in power tools pack, it allows airflow between cells, and cells are not touching each other, makita chargers have a fan that blows air thru battery while charging. But i also think pouches will take over, they are more compact for the same capacity. heat issues will be resolved one way or another. lets just hope they’ll use good quality pouches.
There is approximately zero air flow in packs. I think the Bosch Core packs have the best approach there but I mean it’s still a well sealed pack with tight cells and covered in reasonably thick plastic, so external airflow only does so much. Whatever pouch cells DeWalt sourced sure do deliver the juice, though…it’s impressive even compared to 21700 packs.
In the meantime I wonder if we’ll see copycat legislation in other cities/states or perhaps something at the federal level that would involve action by customs. Hopefully round cells are still freely available and for those that build their own or disassemble for powerwalls or flashlights or whatever, hopefully the packs don’t become a nightmare to disassemble safely. It’s really a shame to see so many cells end up in the recycling bin when they are perfectly good and useable, just a waste of energy and resources when we do that (assuming they actually make it to a recycling center…).
Safety regulations should be extended to other areas. Recently in NL a car ran over a lost tailgate of a lorry and caught fire, causing four people to die (behind auto-locked doors). The authorities blamed the person of the car driving behind them of being under the influence (of what). Because he failed to break in time. I agree that the third car running into the second car did not improve things, but the fire broke out because the “belly” of the car with the four victims in it wasn’t protected (enough). The authorities “failed” to mention in their press statements that the second car was an EV. Social media did.
I agree, safety is the least of concerns, the goal here is creating a task force (read money allocated and positions of power created,) your safety is no one concern in nyc.
Totally easy to do it but there is a lot at stake in a few different areas of concern. Do it at customs/ports. It’ll need to include all countries, not just one (the legislation). This would be federal of course, but it could absolutely be done. Products can’t be sold on any platform, warehouse, or store, if they don’t make it into the country (and these are large items usually purchased in bulk quanities…not so easy to slip under the radar). Risk vs. reward as to wether it’s important enough, lots of costs involved and not just the tail end of things at the retail level.
While technically feasible, there are innumerous items restricted from entry into many a country that pass through so routinely that customs seizure a risk that vanishingly few customers will ever encounter. These aren’t illegal narcotics - nor even knockoffs of brands with serious pull - so they’re not even on Customs’ radar.
Automotive headlamp bulbs are one such item. Per various federal regulations, it’s technically illegal to sell a bulb capable of fitting in an automotive lighting assembly that does not comply with the technical requirements for said lighting assembly. Thus the entire spectrum of PnP HID/LED bulbs, kits, etc are illegal, which are naturally openly available openly on the 'bay, the 'zon, the Auto’Reilly, and even the megalomart.
Not a bad analogy with the auto bulbs but also a great example there of how approximately zero concern or effort has ever been put into it. The rules are so very dated and yes, the technicalities are true and the bulbs not legal, but if I remember correctly when the concerns were put forth they opted to let states deal with that (enforcement) rather than address it at the root. It’s compounded by a lot of things but unfortunately (in my opinion) they’re just going to let it be, maybe hoping that cars that can use the bulbs will be off the road and replaced by factory LED units soon enough (“soon”…haha). In the meantime it’s up to your state or most especially your local enforcement officers as to whether or not you get put on the hot seat. It varies wildly around here (they’re more apt to go for colored lighting or viscious-blue headlamps, if anything). But yeah, if it became an issue of enough importance, no doubt they could nip it in the bud and if they wanted to they could even try to remove existing applications on the road now rather than grandfathering them and allowing existing stock to be sold through. I wish they’d address the crappy sacrificial lens coatings on factory assemblies at the same time (that’s a huge part of the issue really).
If more crashes or deaths were occurring from the headlamps as they apparently are with the fiery battery packs, we’d surely see the attention there. Personally I just hope we retain easy access to bare round cells for the forseeable future and those don’t get nerfed in any future legislation wherever it may be.
WIth led/hid kits, people who had them on their cars, in some rare case, would be ticketed, this battery law, will go after sellers, not users. It costs literally millions for ul labs to test your product, pretty sure no company in china that makes batteries *(pretty much all batteries come from there) or sellers who probably do not make a million per year in sales, will pay to get that certificate. I seriously doubt any jurisdiction outside the ny city will make such laws. population density is not even near of nyc. but they will enjoy extra tax revenue from sellers that moved to LI, Westchester and NJ, which are closest to the city.
Does anyone know what’s in that UL standard? No, because ul is a private company and they don’t publish the standard for everybody to read. You have to pay to get a PDF of the standard. When you are going to pass laws that the public can’t view that is problematic. High wattage bulbs are not necessarily illegal to be sold. They are illegal to use on public roads. If I want to buy a high wattage bulb for my lawn mower to use in my backyard that’s not illegal. If I want to put it in my flashlight that’s not illegal , yet. For those that think that these standards are a good thing, you might be surprised that your flashlight does not actually meet the ansi/plato fl-1 2019 standard. And ul was involved in writing that standard.
Apparently 2 Coleman products were the first to actually be certified on July 6 2022. https://www.ul.com/news/portable-lighting-products-earn-first-certification-ul-s-8001 It cost $500 just to get a PDF of the standard. So members here have not read the standard. Flashlight manufacturers are not allowed to self-certify they must send their products out to an independent third party for certification. Edit. I’m seeing conflicting info about whether or not it has to be done by a third party.
Dude amazon now is like eBay used to be. Anything goes. It looks like they took it down finally, but for the last idk like 3 months one of the top 10 selling flashlights on amazon.ca was a taser. Tasers are a prohibited weapon in Canada. Theyre suuuper illegal. Only 1 company is allowed to import them into the country, they can only be sold to law enforcement obviously, and every single one is tracked like a handgun registry. And they were just on amazon. They weren’t even trying to hide it, like it was just straight up a taser. And it was like a prime recommended item at one point.
And now the #3 top selling flashlight is a “5mW” laser that is definitely not 5mW judging by the reviews and that it advertises 2 hour battery life with some kind of lithium ion battery. Not sure what kind but even if it was a 10mah battery that math doesn’t work out. Not that it matters, because it’s illegal to even possess a laser over 1mW in public in populated parts of the country anyways. You can get jail time if they think you’re shining them at planes. And the listing is like “great fun to point at the sky!”.
you can now buy a silencer on ali, marketed as fuel filter, it is technically not a silencer until you drill some holes in it. but it is definitely not a fuel filter. ATF knows it, they pay a visit to people that buy them asking to sign a paper that it will not be used as a silencer. some time ago wish.com sold auto sears for glocks, which turned pistols into a machine gun, actually by nfa standards that part alone is a machine gun and had to be registered and licensed as such. ATF found out they went after sellers, got list of people who bought it and went after them and arrested them cuz they were in possession of a nfa weapon, even if they did not have a gun, that part alone was worth 10 years in prison.
Heck, it was on the 'zon for a while and I’ve seen more than a few YouTube ads for such nonsense.
At one point one could buy solvent traps which could have nearly all of the features of a suppressor save for the exit aperature. These were useful for cleaning a barrel since they did indeed trap solvent, carbon, lead fouling within and could be cleaned out when convenient. If this seems like an awfully convenient pretext to convert these things to a suppressor that’s because it was - one could obtain the solvent trap of one’s choice, file some forms with the ATF, then upon approval transform said solvent trap into a properly papered suppressor. I recall that the process around homebrewing was less burdensome and cheaper than the one around buying a turnkey product.
Whether this process is still relevant is unknown - I gather that NFA paperwork has since obviated the requirement for local law enforcement to sign off on one’s form for a turnkey item in as a may issue approval thus the avenue may not be as appealing.
To the extent that the newer fuel filter scam came into being that’s because there are some mass-produced fuel filter housings that are convenient to ‘solvent trap’ designs and some hucksters on wish, ali, etc figured this out. And much like spin-on oil filter adaptors one can probably use some fuel filter inserts as a disposable baffles. I always assumed that - like sketchy sketchy ads in the likes of Soldier of Fortune magazine in decades -past - a large percentage of these are law enforcement honeypots or at the very least put buyers on watchlists.
… Anyway …
We shall see if this regulation gains wider traction and it it has any real impact on the market.