When collecting a point and the RTN precision indicators suddenly go south, I'm offered the option of storing the last good position before restarting the timer. Since I don't know how reliable that last position is I've been choosing "No," letting the precision settle down and then collecting the point after the timer counts all the way down. The elapsed time keeps going -- it doesn't reset -- so I'm wondering if Access is using all of the data, or only the segment after the timer reset.
Just curious.
P.S. I'm renting a TSC7, and with 2 fully-charged batteries I'm not able to get through a 9-hour workday. Is that normal?
I dunno, when I get that message I just end the data collection completely and start over. I might walk the rover around a bit and reinitialize it too just in case.
And yes the TSC7s are battery pigs and you need at least 4 batteries to make it a full day. Just another reason I don't like those abominations.
If I understand correctly and you're only seeing just the "precision error" flag, then it should be using all the data accepted through the Kalman filter. Once the precisions settle down, the results reflect a better/more correct position per incoming measurement data than the previous state.
Precisions can be changed by the user, so it can be super tight, or loose as a goose, depending on what it's set to for the purpose of the survey.
Be careful if you see the "position compromised" warning. I would dump everything and start over.
Also, the spaceweather is being funky, so be mindful of that...
"...with 2 fully-charged batteries I’m not able to get through a 9-hour workday. Is that normal?"
Which part, the 9 hour workday or the batteries running dry? 😉
The TSC7 is battery hog with all that screen space. You will get noticeably more time out of it if you can bear turning down the screen brightness.
I did change some setting or another to reduce screen brightness, but it didn't seem to offer many options. Maybe I'm not looking on the right place.
WRT the 9-hour workday, it's not my usual practice, but I'm doing a project that requires 3-hour separations between RTN observations, and I need 3 obs at each station. Even spreading those across more than 1 day (another requirement), I'm having to put in long days. That plus I'm paying $40 a day to rent the TSC7, and I'm cheap.
Do yourself a favour, Mr Frame. Grab yourself one of those 12v power leads for your car.
Screen brightness setting will be in Windows, not in Access.
Yeah get a charger for vehicle. Whenever you jump in hook it up. I always had two in the cradle charger in the truck my crews did the same. Two in tsc7. Comeback to get water or whatever take out the lowest charged battery it tells you which one is being used. We did 13 hr days like that. Same as you. Had to have the gap in between observations and we were running through a lot of points. When possible I had the TSC7 plugged in while rover set up over a point. 2 batteries are not good for a good survey day. I would request they give you 2 more and the cradle. That way at night you can charge the TSC7 and those 2 along with the cradle the other 2 can be charged .
On the poor precisions. If it needs to be right I always make sure I get at least 2 180 epochs at the 4 hrs gap in time. Now sometimes I get 30 epochs before it goes south. I will accept it at last good epoch. And start new measurement. I will just say from all my personal testing of the R12 and R12i. And I have pushed them beyond what I thought should be done is if you get 180 epochs those precision’s usually at 95% becomes very close to the accuracy. That is with independent equipment used for my testing so total stations etc. you by default with TSC7 are probably at DRMS confidence. I taught my crews to just double that in there head. For my requirements. Not exact but it gives a warm in fuzzy by the time I bring it all in at 95% then perform least squares after removing the blunders.
"Screen brightness setting will be in Windows, not in Access."
I just checked, I changed the settings in Windows. The screen is supposed to go off after 5 minutes, and the device is supposed to sleep after 15 minutes. It does neither. I wonder if Access is overriding those somehow.
Someone probably has it set to not go to sleep. I fought this on a rental once. It kept going to sleep and in one spot you set the time and what not another it was some other place. It might come back to me but hopefully others have a device in their hands they can find that. My old brain doesn’t work like it use to. Now if I had one in my hands muscle memory would probably help. At least that’s what I tell myself. On the hamburger in Trimble access that top 3 horizontal lines. Hit that and go down to the bottom I can’t remember but I believe there are some extra options or something down there past all the survey options. It could be there
Turn off the WIFI when you don't actively need it. Leaving the WIFI on, especially if there isn't a WIFI signal available will burn through the batteries. You can just tap the network icon in the lower right corner of the screen near the clock and then tap the button to turn WIFI off. I'd probably kill the cellular also if not needed.
To your main question, how long are your RTK observations? How many observations are you storing per point?
To the batteries, your vendor should have sold you 4 total. There are hardware Fn keys (yellow) to adjust screen brightness. I turn my screen down when walking a decent distance, when taking a break, etc and green button off at lunch. A second set of batteries is far better than charging batteries with your truck. That’d be wasted gas. I’ve used a TSC7 for 5 years and never had to charge a battery in my truck. And yes TA overrides device sleep to avoid annoyance of having to reconnect to your equipment after powering the collector on again
I'm taking 5-minute observations, just one per mark. I have to visit each mark 3 times, but with a minimum 3-hour time-of-day separation, and at least one observation on a different day. Most of my time is spent driving between stations, which are spaced roughly 10 km apart. That's the reason I'm interested in the car charger -- I can keep the TSC7 plugged in while driving, thus saving the batteries.
Thanks for mentioning the fn-4 screen dimming button. I've dropped the brightness down a few notches, and will see how that affects my battery usage today.
I store them. If the subsequent obs doesn't agree, just disable or delete the short observation.
I guess you are doing the obs to submit to OPUS projects. Otherwise, I see little reason to do three obs of 5 minutes each separated by several hours, especially if you are in open sky. The spec surely guarantees good results, but I view it as overkill.
But as long as a client is willing to pay, why not?
