.Almost 30 years ago Mr. Nakaido of the G-Shock development team wanted to challenge the thinking that watches were thin and fragile. In doing so he came up with the idea of the "Triple Ten", which was to build a watch which had 10 years of life, water resistance to 10ATM, and be able to handle a drop of 10 meters high and survive. In 1983 the very first G-Shock was marketed as the DW-5000. There has been over 30 models of the G-Shock released since then, with features ranging from a barometric pressure sonsor to mud-proof watches highly resistant to mud and dirt. Which brings us to what is probably my favorite G-Shock the Mudman, and the 3031 module.
Size of the Mudman is 52mmx46.3mmx16.3mm and weighing 56g. So what makes it mud resistant? The seals on this watch are much thicker, nearly double the diameter of the standard seals used on G-Shocks. This helps to prevent things such as mud, dust or oil from getting to the internals and ruining the watch. Add to that the famous G-Shock resin casing and what more could you ask for. There have been a few complaints of the buttons being a bit harder to push due to the thicker seals but once you get used to them you don't even really notice. Also after pushing on them several times while wearing it they do become a little easier to push. If you still have a problem with the buttons after this, hit the weights . Now on to the many features of this module.
As with most G-Shocks it is shock resistant, water resistant to 200M, you can toggle between Standard Time and DST and you can set the time to be displayed in either 12 or 24 hour timekeeping. It is a standard G-Shock which will require a battery change from time to time. I've had mine for a little over 2 years now and it is still going strong. When the time does come for a battery change I'll post up how long the original one lasted on mine.
To start off you need to set your Home City. You set this by finding the UTC zone that corresponds to where you live. For myself it is UTC-6 hours. Then you can set the correct time and date.
Next is the World Time mode. This has 48 cities and 29 time zones programmed into the watch. A great feature if you do a lot of traveling and you don't feel like having to reset you're watch every time you cross a different time zone. In this mode you toggle up or down to the desired city or country even and the correct time will be displayed. If your home city is set to NYC and you are flying to Hawaii then toggle to HNL and the time will be set to the correct time zone for as long as you leave it there. Or set it for a specific time zone in case you need to contact someone and you want to make sure you won't be calling them at 3:00 am in the morning.
Next is the Countdown Timer. This is the feature that I use the most. Progammable from 1 minute to 24 hours and can even be programmed to the second. At work this feature is a huge plus when running more than one machine during the night. If one machine has a short cycle time and the other machine runs for say 1hr ans 7min you can program the CDT for that time and when it is done it will beep for about 10 seconds. When it is done beeping it will reset to the original time. Or you can turn on the Auto Repeat Function, which will start the CDT over again for you. Also the time of day is displayed at the top while in this mode.
Up next is the Stopwatch mode. Actually there are two stopwatch modes. Both STW modes have elapsed time, split times and two finishes. STW1 has a Auto-Start feature and the display range is 999 hrs, 59 min, 59.99 sec. That's a LOT of time for a STW and I'm not sure if you would ever need that much but better to have and not need than need and not have I always say
.Now we come to the 5 alarms on this module. There is the standard daily alarm where you can set the hour and minutes. Then there is the snooze alarm, which we all hit for about an extra 30 minutes after it goes off . Then the date alarm where you set the day of the month, hour and minutes for this alarm. Then the 1-Month Alarm which will cause the alarm to sound eveyday for the time you set but only for the month that you set. Last is the Monthly Alarm. In this setting the alarm will sound every month on the time you set on the day you set it to. Lots of alarm options with this watch that can be used for anything from hourly settings to monthly alarms.
The Flash Alert is a nice little feature that when turned on the Dual Illuminator will flash for the Alarms, Hourly Time Signal, STW and CDT Alarm. This can be turned on or off for each individual mode to your liking.
Last is the Auto Dual Illuminator. Like other Auto EL G's to use this feature you hold the upper right button down until the "Auto EL" comes on in the upper right hand corner. Now when you angle your watch towards your face to see the time the Dual Illuminator will automatically light up. Nice little feature if you don't feel like fumbling around for the light button.
So there is the G-Mudman module 3031. Personally one of the best modules around IMO and one of the most bullet proof for standing up to lots of abuse. Here are some pic of my G-9000MC-3 green camo Mudman, along with a crappy pic of the Dual Illuminator . For a watch this size it sits rather well on my 6.5" wrists.
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