Shock resistance testing
Hi All,
Tom’s early Incabloc advertisements prompted me to read about shock resistance testing of watches and I thought you might be interested in the information too. ISO 1413:1984 is the common standard employed, but is relatively easy to achieve with modern watch design.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) document “ISO 1413:1984 Horology, Shock-resistant watches” describes the method of testing and specifies the minimum requirements that a watch must achieve in order to be described as shock resistant. Some of the watches that pass this test have “Shock Resistant” engraved on the watch. I assume “Shock Proof” is some literary licence taken by the manufacturers and obviously overstates the truth.
The test is based on the simulation of the shock received by a watch falling from a height of 1 m on to a horizontal hardwood surface.
In practice this is achieved by applying two shocks, one on the 9 o'clock side, and one perpendicular to the front of the watch on the crystal. The shock is delivered by a hard plastic hammer weighing 3 Kg mounted on a pendulum delivering an impact velocity of 4.43 m/s. The watch must be able to maintain its accuracy to +/- 60 seconds/day as measured before the test.
Regards
Andrew
*I can't look*
Tom
The JLC impact test.
The JLC test would appear to far exceed the ISO Standard.
When you drop a watch from 1 metre, it'll hit that hardwood board at 4.43m/s, which is where JLC set their test. The difference is....they use a huge 3kg mass...or 30 times worse than say a 100gram watch. Or like dropping the same 100gram watch from 30m instead of 1m.
So either JLC are exceptionally good, or the standard is exceptionally poor! 
(whoops, just followed your links. Velociphile did the same maths...)
I would say "yes" to both ...
The ISO standard looks pretty easy to reach, and it's good to see JLC over-engineering their watches in this respect.
It also looks like they reached the same conclusion as you did, six years ago.
Thanks for the comments.
Andrew
Some years ago…
I was in that exact same room and saw the test.
Dang – they smacked the watch like a golf ball!
Really impressive to see what our beloved watches actually can endure if they have to.
Best
Blomman
Live torture tests
“Built to take a beating ..”
“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking”
Thanks Tony. Love these adverts. Very inventive and keeps your attention – there should be more of it!
Through a pane of glass and into water – I guess it is conceivable that some poor WIS’ wife could throw his new purchase through the window and into the swimming pool outside.
“Truly an incredible demonstration …”
Andrew
A few years back
I removed a watch from a dog's small intestine. As I had not been bitten by the bug, I am not sure what brand it was although I want to say it was a Casio. I don't think it was rated as resistant to stomach acid and digestive juices. The owner did not want it back.
Stewart
You might appreciate this story ...
Hi Stewart,
You might appreciate this story then - it happens to humans too. [Click to Link ]
Andrew
Fantastic radiograph
The following discussion was very entertaining as well. I am unfortunately aware of foreign bodies in the colon due to voluntary placement of objects, but seeing an ingested watch is a little suprising. I have heard of people swallowing drugs or precious stones as a smuggling technique, but not watches or other objects unless mental illness was a factor. I was trying to come up with an explanation as to how the watch ended up in the ileum, but it was covered quite well in the original thread. Thanks for pointing me to the post.
Stewart