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I would like to see a Trimble using active track on a vest. Or any other prism. I remember when the same was said about the old 5600 robots. Oh they chase taillights and anything but the prism. I went to a shootout with 3 manufacturers and gave each competitor a triple prism. And said talk can walk beside me all you want it ain’t locking to them. I had my little 360 turned on. Then when the s series came out with active tracking we did the same thing. In passive mode yes it can lock to something like all can . That was many years ago and they all have improved is my guess. I have used two topcon robots. On only two different occasions. One this past summer as I helped a buddy while back home in MS for the day. Was running the field genius or something. I thought the software itself was not bad easy to learn. Now the tracking or searching made me frustrated as dozers and loaders drove between me and gun. I had to learn to stay put until they passed instead of going to the next point. The other time was doing a layout and it was not fun as the gun was out of adjustment not the guns fault. We grabbed a topcon total station and did the rest as we were squaring up a building. I have not run a sokkia anything since the side 24 or 33 days and the old set 2 and 3 from 90’s. I had no issues back then with them except the end was slow compared to the wild I had ran. But man the technology and power in today’s equipment is unbelievable. I mean we can map stake comp just about anything on the fly very easily and see what we did on a screen vs my comfort zone of a pocket scale and graph paper and a calculator on hood of truck. Which I still do just to keep my brain working. I was a big fan of SMI Construction Vi and C&G. Still miss those. But what a world we live in now where I basically have more capabilities in a data collector as my first cog routine on a computer.
Lee, I’ll give you that the Trimble is a load and uses a lot of battery. I wouldn’t want to carry it far. Nevertheless, the active tracking simply cannot be beat.
As for Topcon, in the last several years I’ve used 2 PS103A’s and a GT-503 regularly. Now I’ve got a Leica TS-16. The Leica acquires and tracks much, much better than any of the Topcons did.
River, the Trimble 5600’s never tracked taillights or vests or anything other than the diode. That was both its selling point and its drawback.
- This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Norman_Oklahoma.
Trimbles Active prism does track well, but not accurate enough for anchor bolts layout. So it is of no use to me.
Now that I will agree with. It is most definitely not meant for anchor bolts. It’s great for Topo and most construction staking. I would hate to use it for anchor bolts. I did once this year but I had no choice it was all I had. I used a 1 ft rod and steel tape. One of those jobs we got and didn’t have the equipment needed to do it correctly for sure. Thank goodness the contractor had some string so I set up batter boards and such. The last day I had to get the boss out so I could chain everything in and pull diagonals. That was one of those jobs a crew was sent on with no scope or knowhow. Crew chief thank goodness called me and asked for me to comp coordinates. I had not even known about the job. It was close enough to the house I jumped in my truck and headed to the site. Boss calls and said can u help. I was already on site. A building tying into an existing building. Crew chief had no experience doing layout like that his whole career everything has been pre computed . The contractor had already had it about right so I just set myself parallel with building and laid out the column lines and then squared them up to the existing building. We have another one coming up inside an existing building and I have already asked for a new prism. But the higher ups say we have what we have. I will probably have to go help set that one up as well because if you don’t have coordinates it can’t be staked is what I am told LOL. I need to find a roll of piano wire and build a few templates I guess.
That’s what the semi-active tracking mode is for. It tracks you in active mode then switches to passive to take the measurement. Semi-active takes a bit longer to take the shot but I’ve never had it shoot anything but the MT-1000 prism.
We had good results using Geomax’s Zoom90 and Zoom95 for the past 5 years. Leica quality and reliability at a lower price. No need to send them in for yearly servicing, just regularly site calibrate them. You can also choose the software you like ( survCE/PC, Fieldgenius or X-Pad) , all very intuitive and easy to use. They use Long Range Bluetooth handles that give you reliable connection to 300m(1000′) when paired with the correct class 1 or class 1.5 Bluetooth DC. We have 3 of them used daily without issues.
If it was my money that is what I would buy. And a Panasonic FZ-M1 tablet to go with it.
I did use that for sure. I also made sure the prism was facing directly to gun on all shots as well. All I know we were pulling diagonals with steel tape me and my much older than I LS and where checking pretty well. Now it did take both of us a minute to get steady with the plumb bobs again. The old contractor saw us and asked if we needed more coffee as we were both a little shaky lol. I told him I felt like a squirrel shi!!ing persimmons :). I could most definitely tell I was out of practice. Once we got up to grade it was much easier for us. My LS said good grief it’s been a while. I said I know there was a time when I could tap a plumb bob and get steady pretty quickly but that thing kept dancing on me and I Lee both couldn’t get synchronized for measurements hollering good for a bit.
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