Leica 1200 system
This is what I fear in the Leica 1200 system: It imports data from irrelevant files, and files I have deleted will return.
I’ve learned to have only one file in the rover at a time, so it won’t import strange points, but it still manages to find them somehow. I open a new file called Payson and import my pre-calculated points, all in the 1-23 range. Suddenly there is also a point 4223. The import file has no such point. Just in case, I look in the calibration files which I cleared out the day before. There are two old ones still there. I clear them out. After doing all of the GPS work, very carefully I might point out, I switch to the rover. First setup the difference in distance to the backsight is great, but the elevation is off by a tenth. I do the setup over and again carefully measure up and shoot. Still off by a tenth. I look in the calibration files and there are two old ones, the same ones I cleared out both this morning and yesterday. I realize that the system is somehow warping my elevations to try to match something in Tucson, miles away. I clear out the two old calibration files, again.
This morning I use the rover to look at the files, and one of the old calibration files is back. Aaaaarrrrgh.
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> This morning I use the rover to look at the files, and one of the old calibration files is back. Aaaaarrrrgh.
It sounds like the solution involves a wooden stake and a mallet. Make sure you drive it right through the heart, or it might not take. (Insert Dick Cheney joke here.)
Bruce, I have never experienced anything like this in over four years of 1200 use, BUT I rarely have more than once job in the DBX directory at a time. I think all transformation sets are stored in the same trans.dat file in the DBX directory on the card AND maybe a copy in internal memory too, you might check the internal memory as well as the card. Is it possible the later transformation was named the same as the older one AND since they have the same name, the one stored in memory is being used rather than the newer one on the card? It seems to mean once deleted, it would be deleted and not magically reappear.
SHG
Bruce,
I experienced similiar issues with a Lieca 1200 system many years ago.
One problem tnat drove me absolutely crazy was the instrument changing prism types in the middle of doubling angles.
Great hardware, very different software. I should add that I was using the 1200 smart station setup. We had the robotic total station and the vrs rover.
I had a very similar experience with the Leica 1200 not long after the 1200 systems came out. For example, I would go out and shoot a job and close it out, but leave the data file in the data collector. I would create a new job the next day, and at least one point from the job of the previous job would be created without warning in the new file. I have been using Trimble since 2005, and I don’t remember precisely what was happening, but I could not tolerate inadvertent co-mingled Leica data files. I discovered this while trying to stake out the point, and found it was not on the same job. I did it multiple times on multiple jobs. Could something similar be happening when adjustments are made after all this time?
Of course, this could have been me doing something wrong, but it was my interpretation that this was happening. All in all, Leica equipment is great.
I had a typo in my post. I meant to say that after completing the GPS work I switched to the reflectorless, and that is when I had the problems with bad elevation check shots because of the warped file. It only effects the verticals, not the horizontals.
I remember when I first saw this problem several years ago it took five trips between the rover and the reflectorless to kill the calibration files so they were really gone.
I know it isn’t the reflectorless per se, because last week I set up and ran the classical level test: shoot both ends from the middle, then shoot from near one end to the other. The elevation discrepancy was 0.001 feet, which is as close as I can point.
Have seen this happen now and then, and I keep about 20 jobs in the card.
I don’t use calibrations, usually a state plane zone or plain ol’ TenThousandLand.The one button-pushing event that will ALWAYS make this happen is to be in the Setup program and breeze past the option “keep current setup” — if you pass through that selection but do not select it, and it’s the first setup of the day at a new job, the Swiss Miss will import that coordinate (the last setup, previous job) into your data. If that coordinate relies on other coordinates it will drag those in, too.
There are a few other gotcha moments that might do the same thing, but I haven’t exhaustively tested them all. Seems to mostly happen in Setup, and mostly when you are changing something having to do with the type of Setup (anything where you could be setting up on a known point has the potential to drag in a previous point, if you cross that “keep current point” option.
Never happens in the various resection functions, where it presumes you are setting up at an unknown point.
I will keep an eye out for that one. Thanks.
Seems like I remember reading about problems being caused by using a non-Leica memory card.
Nope. Strictly all Leica.
Personally for me, Swiss hardware is wonderful.
Swiss Software, I don’t trust it. There is something backwards about the way they think.
They blew up something as simple as the prism constant offset.
On the good side,
At least you’re up in the mountains and not in the heat, right? We spent our honeymoon along the Tonto Rim many years ago. Beautiful country.
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