Help needed for Spectra Epoch 50 GNSS

Sounds very much like hardware failure to me 🙁

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it really sounds like that but i'm still hopeful that there's a solution for this. I bought these units brand new overseas just 3 years ago and have been very careful in using it in the field. It has never been dropped, soaked in the rain or in anyway manhandled. My only suspicion is when we had this flood control survey a couple of months ago and there was a sudden thunderstorm near the Base location. I was 8 kilometers away doing RTK with the Rover, I had to race back to the Base to turn it and the radio off and keep them safe from lightning strikes. It seems to function normally afterwards since we were able to use it 5 or 6 times before we had this error message.

There's no Spectra Precision service center here in the Philippines so I got no choice but to try to fix it myself, hopefully with some help from anybody in here 🙂

Thanks,

Franco

The current firmware is 4.81:

http://www.spectralasers.com/media/wysiwyg/pdf/geo/WFC-Epoch50-V481.exe

Instructions here: http://www.spectralasers.com/media/wysiwyg/pdf/geo/EPOCH_50_GNSS_FW_v4.81_Relesae_Notes.pdf

There is no reason to install 4.71, just move to the latest version.

You already have the latest device firmware 1.10

The current ADL firmware is 4.01, but this has nothing to do with your issue.

I assume that the PC serial port that you are using to upgrade is COM3? (I assume it is a USB to Serial adapter?) The error message that you are seeing can be duplicated by selecting the COM port on the PC which does not match the actual physical port number (for example the serial cable is plugged into COM6, but you select COM 3 which might be an IR port on the PC). It could be as simple as changing the COM port number on WinFlash to match the hardware on your PC.

Are you able to capture the Epoch50 to the 'GNSS-PC' screen?

m

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your reply. Yes I used GNSS-PC mode and a serial-usb adapter when updating the receiver. I'll double check the COM port settings again and see maybe i missed something.

Thanks,

Franco

I have an Epoch 50 question. I am contemplating buying a second unit. I am interested in some feedback on the pros/cons of using the internal transmitter for the base unit compared to using a more powerful external radio transmitter like a Pacific Crest ADL. The external radio configuration is obviously a significant additional financial output, but I can't find any literature on what the range limitations are for the rover unit when using the internal radio transmitter in the Epoch 50. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I have only used my current Epoch 50 as a rover connected to the CalVRS network.

Hi dhunter,

The Epoch 50's internal radio has an output of 0.5W to 1W, you can get a range of 2-3 KM on open field with this. On normal urban areas the range are much shorter, i seldom go far than 600 meters before a signal is lost. The benefit of an internal radio is of course faster setup time, however you can only work up to 2 hours before changing the batteries.

We both have the ADL Vantage and ADL Vantage Pro radios. The former has a maximum output of 4W while the latter has up to 35W of transmitting power. We were able to do RTK up to 15 KM away from the base on open sea with the 35W, i think i could have gone farther if I have a taller antenna at the base.

We can maybe get 1 mile with ours in urban area. When we are out in the county, say Central IL, with just the internal radio and a 2' external antennae attached to the tripod we can 2-3 miles. But using just the internal radio makes leapfrogging very easy and fast. But we use ours as network rovers 95% of the time.

StL Surveyor & FFSurveys

Thank you very much for the feedback. That is exactly what I was looking for. That range will meet my needs.

Dennis

A follow up question. I have not been able to find any documentation for setting the Epoch 50 from rover/receiver to a base station in transmit mode. Is this something the end user can configure or does it need to be sent in to a service center to be done?

Hi Dennis,

You can setup the Epoch 50 as a Base or Rover using either Survey Pro or Carlson SurvCE/SurvPC in your data collector. If you're using SurvCE, connect to the Epoch50 as GPS Base and on the RTK Tab use Internal ADL as the broadcast radio.

Hope that helps,

Franco

FFSurveys, post: 347536, member: 10809 wrote: Hi Dennis,

You can setup the Epoch 50 as a Base or Rover using either Survey Pro or Carlson SurvCE/SurvPC in your data collector. If you're using SurvCE, connect to the Epoch50 as GPS Base and on the RTK Tab use Internal ADL as the broadcast radio.

Hope that helps,

Franco

Thanks Franco!

Ok, I am frustrated. I am usually pretty good at trouble shooting settings, but I am stumped. I purchased an Epoch 50 a couple years ago and have used it solely as a Net Rover via the CalVRS network for southern California. It did what I needed and had no problems. I recently bought a second Epoch 50 and have planned to use it as a base/rover set up. It appears neither were setup with the needed radio channel settings by the original equipment supplier to transmit and receive via the modem. I get the message "the radio channel table is empty".

I have downloaded the ADLCONF utility from Pacific Crest but have been unable to get the utility to sync with the Epoch 50s. I have worked out the serial port and compatibility issues on my laptop and have been successful with upgrading the firmware on the Epoch 50s to 4.70. I am holding off on updating to firmware 4.81 until I get the communication issues resolved.

I would appreciate any advice/input. This link implies the Pacific Crest ADLCONF software may need a hardware lock and that may be the issue I am having. Thanks again in advance.

https://surveyorconnect.com/threads/gps-internal-radio-request-assistance.174713/#post-174713

The frequencies have to be installed by a dealer.

Thanks Adam

dhunter, post: 354747, member: 286 wrote: Thanks Adam

No problem

Posted by: @ffsurveys

↑

Hello Everyone, my name is Franco, a Land Surveyor and Engineer based here in Manila, The Philippines. Me and our small surveying firm are engaged in various types of surveying works with a few private & government clients. Although it's my first time posting here, I am a frequent site visitor and is fond of reading the wealth of knowledge & experiences this site offers.

I would like to seek help regarding one of our survey equipment, a Spectra Precision Epoch 50 GNSS receiver. Perhaps a reader in this forum has encountered the same problem as mine and managed to find a solution for it. The problem is about an "Error" message appearing on the screen of my "Base" Epoch 50. We had this unit for about 3 years now and it functions perfectly well until this error appeared just 2 or 3 weeks ago. Our "Rover" receiver does not have this error.

Both of our Epoch 50 receivers has the below information;

1) Trimble BD970 GNSS board
2) MPU Firmware Version 1.10 dated 02/01/2013
3) GNSS Firmware Version 4.71 dated 02/21/2013
4) ADL Foundation Firmware Version 3.04.2281

For the Base, I tried reloading the MPU Firmware v1.10 using the Epoch 50 Firmware Loader and it is successfully loading. However, when I reload the GNSS Firmware v4.71 using WinFlash application, an error message;

"DevBD9xx Version 4.70b4 Device Failure! [805] - The BD9xx on Com3 did not respond as expected. Restart the BD9xx and try again"

I restarted and tried several times, all without success. I made the same procedure on the Rover receiver to check whether my cables & PC connection are fine and it went ok. So it seems the problem is really inside the Base receiver.

As a last resort, I tried resetting the Base receiver to its factory default settings. I followed the instructions on the user manual. An error message appeared saying " Cannot default to factory settings " and " RcvErr02 ".

The Error Codes on the User Manual says that " RcvErr00-03" means "Unable to revert GNSS Board to factory defaults" but it does not give any suggestions on what to do afterwards.

I hope somebody from this board would be generous enough to help me.

Thank you very much and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Franco

Hi Franco I know its been long, but I need your help. Do you still have the MPU firmware version 1.1 and any other firmware for the Epoch 50 4.62 and above your help is much appreciated. Email [email protected]