Common questions

The G-sensing mechanism needs no power. A sprung mass responds to acceleration and moves a stylus across the chart. A battery powers the motor that advances the chart.

In the RM-3WE, the chart drive is a quartz DC stepping motor powered by a single C cell. No signal is required. Check the chart-drive battery before deployment: G-force sensing is unpowered, but the motor needs battery power to advance the time-stamped chart.

Within 4% of full scale. Components are machined to 0.0001″ tolerances, and every instrument is calibrated both statically and dynamically before it ships, dynamically because a recorder that is only calibrated at rest tells you nothing reliable about the frequencies real freight actually produces.

Calibration documentation is available with any order; most quality teams want it on file. More on accuracy and calibration →

There is no drift of the kind an electronic sensor exhibits, because there is no sensor and no firmware, the response is set by the mechanism itself. For programs with a formal quality system we recommend periodic recertification on your own audit cycle, and we perform it at the factory. Ask an engineer for the interval that suits your documentation requirements.

The chart is a physical trace made by a stylus inside a sealed instrument. It cannot be edited, reformatted, silently overwritten, or lost in a firmware update, and none of the three parties to a shipment (shipper, carrier, consignee) can change what it says. That is the whole point of it.

The RM-3WE is the choice when you need the complete picture: three axes, continuously, with pneumatic damping and chart speeds to 120 days. It goes on the freight where failure is not an option, transformers, satellite assemblies, semiconductor tools, defense articles.

The GEMM is the compact multi-axis monitor for crated equipment and smaller high-value freight, and it is the one that answers the argument at the receiving dock: when a drop happened, from what height, and on which corner.

If you would rather answer four questions than read two spec tables, the product selector makes the recommendation.

Match the range to what the cargo can actually survive, not to what sounds protective. A 10G threshold on a 40-ton transformer is wrong twice: it will not trigger on the slow, heavy events that damage large equipment, and it will trigger constantly on handling that does no harm at all, which trains everyone to ignore it.

Send us the cargo weight, the packaging, and the route, and our engineers will recommend a range. The G-range selection guide is on either product page.

RM-3WE charts run 7, 15, 30, 60, 90, and 120 days; the GEMM runs 14, 30, 60, and 90. Custom chart speeds are available, multi-modal international moves that outlast a standard chart are a routine request, not an exception.

The chart completes and stops advancing; recording ends, but everything already written is intact. This is why chart speed should be specified against the worst-case transit time including dwell, not the booked time. Tell us the route and we will size it with margin.

About five minutes to learn the basics. You are reading three things: magnitude (how far the trace deflects), axis (which stylus wrote it), and timestamp (where along the chart it sits). Once someone at receiving can do that, they can accept or reject freight against a documented threshold instead of guessing.

Annotated sample charts, coupling shocks, drops, forklift strikes, ocean-swell signatures, come with the interpretation guide on each product page.

Yes, and it is one of the main reasons customers deploy it. A freight damage claim involves three parties and, until the crate is opened, no impartial account of the journey. The chart is that account: a physical, continuous, time-stamped record made by a sealed instrument none of the parties can edit. Impact Register chart data has been used in lading-damage litigation, including numerous federal cases.

Different tools for different questions. A tracker answers “where is it now?” A mechanical recorder answers “what happened to it?”, for the whole journey, with no signal required. G-force sensing needs no power, while a battery powers the chart-drive motor. Plenty of our customers run both.

The honest comparison, in detail →

Rigidly, to the structure whose motion you care about, the crate frame, the skid, or the equipment itself, with the axes oriented as marked. A recorder mounted to something that can move independently records that thing, not your freight. Mounting orientations are covered in each operating manual, and our engineers will review your arrangement before a program deployment.

Yes. Request a sample and we will send an instrument to try against a real shipment.

Both. We sell direct to manufacturers shipping high-value equipment, through packaging integrators who specify our instruments inside their crating, and through distributors in importing markets. Channel enquiries →

In the United States, as they have been since 1914.