Mil-std 810g (1 Viewer)

[typo]

Occasionally I've seen binoculars, usually military ones, that claim to pass MIL-STD 810 tests for immersion, shock etc. and wondered what it involved. I've found a web book for the standard.

It covers environmental testing for everything from the size of trucks downwards and it's not easy to extract the items that relate to portable items like binoculars, but with patience the detail is there.

Of course very few if any birding binoculars are built to these standards as the Allbinos test indicates, so it has little relevance here but interesting (to me at least) all the same.

http://webbooks.net/freestuff/MIL-STD-810G.PDF

David

 

[Binastro]

dear David,
thanks for posting that.
Unfortunately my hands are not that great today, could you possibly say what the military specifications for binoculars are as I cannot trawl through 800 pages.

It is of great interest to me what the military specifications are, although I suppose they have changed over the years.

I think several Fuji non- binoculars meet the specifications, but they end up being quite heavy, which may not be good for birding binoculars or even Astro binoculars.

I often prefer lightweight binoculars of rather poor quality such as the 15 x 70 revelation or its clones rather than better binoculars such as the quantum in various weights.

The heavy ones are beautiful to use but need a tripod, the light ones can be handheld and for astronomy often slight hand movements reveal faint fuzzy objects which are not seen with tripod mounted binoculars.
With tripod mounted binoculars tapping them will reveal faint comets for instance.

A nice sunny day today.

 

[typo]

Binastro,

I totally agree it's a daunting document. Somewhere along the lines I did see when the different revisions of the 810 occurred, but I think G is the latest version.

Needless to say I've not tried to read through much of it but just tried to figure out when manufactures refer to immersion, drop or shock tests etc. what kind of protocol the binoculars might be subjected to. Unfortunately there is only one reference to binoculars in the whole thing and that is in the 'Contamination by fluids' section which does not include water immersion. It mostly lists procedures leaving open which one is pertinent to a specific item though claims in manufacturers binocular specification give a fairly good idea.

512.5 1-7 covers immersion. Generally this covers 'fording' or immersion for fairly short periods. The basic test appears to be 1m depth for one hour. Variations include subjecting the instrument to other tests like a vibration or other stress tests first, or inducing positive or negative pressures by using water that 10 or 27*C different to the test item.

There are a whole variety of protocols which cover various vibration resistances for transportation by air, sea and land, but I've not tried to figure that stuff out. There are procedures to simulate drop tests using hydraulics for example. As far as I can make out the basic test is 30 inch drop onto plywood but indicates that 48” might be more appropriate for light hand held items. There are requirements for different orientations and number of repeats (26) which may be divided between up to five specimens. There is provision for an escalating the hight until damage occurs, which might explain why I've seen 20' by one manufacturer.

Temperature covers a whole range of protocols for different climates and conditions and diurnal ranges but it looks like roughly -50 to +50C might be an acceptable test range. However there is provision for even more extremes including a solar heating test as well at much higher temperatures. 86*C I think.

There is plenty of other stuff in there which might be applied to binoculars but I've run out of energy to look for it, for now at least.

David