[volt-nuts] A Fluke 732A: Return it or keep it?

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On 8 Mar 2014 05:57, "Charles Steinmetz" <csteinmetz at yandex.com> wrote:
>
> Michael wrote:
>
>> The battery is big concern to me. When I called Fluke, one of the rep
said it should be shipped to them "hot" Because 732A's battery life is very
limited, it should be shipped using Morning Service. I was going to call
FedEx if they have 12 hours service. And I belive most cal lab require the
732A to be delivered "hot." The manual says so.
>
>
> No matter what you do, short of hand-delivering it if you live close
enough, the internal battery does not have enough charge to reliably ship
it, even overnight.  You will need to build or buy a shipping container
that has an auxiliary battery.  Fluke sells external battery packs for
$375, or you can make your own.

Be careful about shipping issues on high energy batteries. Depending on the
capacity, they may need to be declared as dangerous goods. I recently
needed to ship a Lithium Ion battery about the size of a laptop battery.
The courier I normally use (Interparcel, who subcontract to UPS, Fedex or
whoever one chooses), wont handle batteries. Going directly to Fedex,
without having a contract, cost a fortune, although they would carry the
battery.

The fact a battery is external to the equipment makes it even more tricky
to ship, since I guess there is more chance of a short developing in such a
case.

Dave