small story

[kallell.livejournal.com]

Ok, I am a warehouse lead and we ship alot of used medical equipment and computers.
Today we where preparing a shipment going to europe and since computers are hazardous materials we where opening them up to determine the nature of hazmat needed to ship them (those little watch batteries on the MB are lithium and have brought down a few planes when allowed to short out).

anyways the reason i post this is one of my workers was trying to remove a panel from the case using a . . . . get this, A Hammer!


I love my job, i love me job, i love my job

Comments

[tothwolf.livejournal.com]

those little watch batteries on the MB are lithium and have brought down a few planes when allowed to short out

Can you cite a source for that?

I'm very familiar with battery technologies (in another life I designed boards and equipment) and have never heard of a lithium coin cell bringing down a plane. That being said, they do tend to explode violently when shorted out (note to those who might consider trying it: do not even *think* of trying it), but they don't catch fire.

Lithium ion batteries on the other hand (such as those used in laptops)... Well, we all know what happens when quality control allows defective cells to be sold to manufacturers :P

[kallell.livejournal.com]

I probably could, I know our company was fined because of a fire, and when i was putting together the hazmat training i found a source of a lithium battery bringing down a fed ex plane. also many sources where cited by our trainer.

I will note that the ones IN computers have not, to my knowledge, started a fire, but DoT and IATA still classify "Lithium Batteries contained in Equipment" as a hazmat item but ussually as exempt if the battery has been tested and is under a certain lithium ammount and the battery is under a certain weight (UN3091). However due to that if you ship motherboards or computers, you do need to be hazmat trained :)

Remind me when i am not pretending to get ready for work and i may be able to look it up, either that or I might remember to ask our EHS rep