Member
November 2, 2023 at 9:07 am
“And sorry what were you referring to me testing myself vs what people say on the internet?”
The virtue of using this semi-active business to a non-active target rather than just sticking with the MT1000 for all your work. Test that.
As far as all your shop’s instrument behaving like this, I do believe you. But people outside of your shop are not experiencing this. Trimble would not sell many instruments if they did. Trimble sells a lot of product. Therefore, something must be funky in your shop.
I’m not taking the word of any Trimble flunky as gospel until I’ve tested it for myself.
BTW, I’ve been super impressed with your ability to jury-rig things that just shouldn’t be jury-riggable. Nevertheless, Trimble S5s with Access are giving satisfactory service all over the world. They wouldn’t have such a huge market share if everybody was experiencing what you are. So I’m thinking with the mindset that something must be funky.
I speak as a person that used Trimble for 20+years up until 3 years ago, when I switched to Leica (with some hard time served with Topcon mixed in). The switch from Trimble to Leica was more based on economics that any disappointment with Trimble performance. There are some things I like better about the Leica, some things I like better about the Trimble."
I assume our shop is not the only one like this, but our boss who buys all of the equipment, has never used any Trimble robot. I believe he's played with the sx12 in the shop, but I'm sure he's never actually used any of the s5's or the s7 out in the field. He's stuck in the office all day. People also don't like to complain to the guy paying for the equipment that it doesn't work well.
I'm willing to spend my own time researching this stuff and looking very closely into the settings. It took a lot of experimenting with the survey style for the Leica and settings to do with search, to get that working properly. I'm also the guy who rigged up Parani bt adaptors to get this Leica robot working with the Panasonic tablet before they got me the RH17 radio handle for it, which improved the workflow greatly.
So yesterday afternoon I swung by the Dimensions exhibition hall to have a chat with the folks who could best answer these questions. I found two product engineers who literally design and work with the S series total stations and accessories at their factory in Germany. They were doing a few sessions on the development of the S series and SX series, basically a look behind the scenes at how they are designed and built.
Rather than bring up the fact that there are a bunch of us arguing back and forth on the internets about the issue, I just told them that I had an employee who was having problems with his MT1000 and S5.
The conversation when like this:
"Hi, I have an employee who is seeing major problems with semi-active mode."
"Oh really? What problems are you seeing?"
"It is taking about eight seconds to take an observation in semi-active mode."
"Hmmm...that should not be happening."
"Well he says it is consistent across all his equipment, and always has been."
"That is not normal. Without major obstructions it should take no more than 3 seconds at most."
"OK, so what could cause that sort of a lag?"
"Well, it could be a communication, radio, issue, but otherwise it would have to be the tracker in the instrument itself."
"OK, so just to be clear it should never take more than a few seconds to observe a point in semi-active mode with the measurement set to Standard?"
"That is correct. Please have them contact their dealer, we would very much like to look at this."
"....one more question about semi-active mode. When it switches from active to passive, what are the diodes being used for?"
"I don't understand, are you asking how it switches?"
"No, I am asking if the diodes are used in any way, shape or form when a measurement is initiated and the instrument switches to passive mode."
"OK, so the diodes are not used at all when the instrument switches. The observation taken in semi-active mode relies solely on the prism."
"For angles too, not just distances?"
"Yes of course, if we used the diodes there would be no significant difference between active and semi-active mode and there would be no point. Using the prism improves the vertical angle significantly which is why we developed that method."
"That's interesting, I have another coworker who says he was told that the diodes are still being used."
"No, that is not correct."
"...Thanks."
They were very patient with me, I think I probably sounded a bit dense to them, but they were very clear on their points.
“Well, it could be a communication, radio, issue ....,"
A really good point. I had a Topcon PS with a Ranger 3/Survey Pro dc at one employer. There was looooong latency with any and every command issued. It drove me nuts. At my current employer we have the same identical model Topcon PS, only with a Tesla/Magnet data collector. The latency is nearly non-existent.
Ok, so I wanted to follow up, since I commented earlier. I use an S5 with the TSC5. I misunderstood the issue, and was focused on the use of leica gear.
My apologies.
I have to say that the extended time to store a shot seems to be simply waiting for the statistics to meet the minimums. It is VERY frustrating to use when collecting lots of topo data. One trick I use to avoid the issue is to use the Stake-Line function to collect the data. It stores instantly. When I'm locating important control or boundary items, I just switch to "measure topo".
I've used Trimble gear for most of my career, but it seems like there aren't too many options in Survey Styles to set these things up. If I'm missing something, (entirely possible) I'd love to hear about it.
Andy
Andy,
You may be working in 'Standard' or single shot mode (small S beside the Total Station icon)
It may be quicker for you to be in Track mode (small T beside the icon).
In track mode the current readings are available to store immediately - rather than triggering a full measurement cycle
Stakeout is always in track mode, which may be why you are seeing the difference
Change between the two modes on the Instrument functions page
Suggest you ask them to
connect to the instrument via radio
take a single active measurement with the instrument in Track mode
take a single active measurement with the instrument in Standard mode
take a single semi-active measurement with the instrument in Standard mode
It is only slow 'Standard' mode - but it takes around 6 seconds for me
So maybe they had a bad batch of trackers that ended up in all our robots? Unfortunately I can't go in and tell my boss that we need to send all 3 of our robots in, only because they're shooting slowly in semi active mode. I don't believe its a communication/radio issue because it's not affected by whatever causes the joystick to lag severely sometimes. The measurements take basically 7-10 seconds every single time. 7 seconds best case scenario using a bipod and no obstructions, 10 seconds if you're not using a bipod and drank too much coffee that morning.
"Unfortunately I can’t go in and tell my boss that we need to send all 3 of our robots in, only because they’re shooting slowly in semi active mode."
The obvious solution to that is to send in 1 at a time. Trimble should provide a rental replacement while they have yours and fixes them on warranty. I don't know how far you are from the Trimble dealer, but you/your company are well within your rights to have the salesman out to demonstrate how this function should be working using a demo model if necessary.
"I don’t believe its a communication/radio issue because it’s not affected by whatever causes the joystick to lag severely sometimes."
Huh? That seems more like proof in the positive rather than the negative.
I'm saying that (a known problem) is that the joystick lags badly. Jim Cox confirmed that he also saw this issue, but it seems to depend on the number of points in my job. If working in a fresh job with no points, or a small job, it doesn't lag much at all...but the semi active shots have always been (and likely always will be) 7+ seconds.
Telling them I think there is something wrong with all of our 3 Trimble s series robots because some people on the internet said it should shoot much faster, but a Trimble support tech says it does take a least 6 seconds, is just asking for me to look like the idiot in the end, when everyone figures out that yes it takes at least 6 seconds.
One last question...how many of you have actually gone and verified you were in semi active mode, shooting in angles and distance, in standard mode (not tracking as it will just store immediately and not measure) and run a stopwatch for the entire shot?
"Telling them I think there is something wrong with all of our 3 Trimble s series robots because some people on the internet said it should shoot much faster, .... is just asking for me to look like the idiot in the end..."
Your company has invested a lot of money in these instruments and the salesman has pocketed a lot more of that loot than just wages. It will ultimately be your bosses decision, I suppose, but you should not be shy about demanding the satisfaction you deserve. The salesman's future depends on the continued confidence in the products he is selling. He should be eager for the chance to ease your mind and those of your coworkers and bosses.
“I don’t believe its a communication/radio issue because it’s not affected by whatever causes the joystick to lag severely sometimes.”
Huh? That seems more like proof in the positive rather than the negative.
To elaborate on this, last Friday I worked with another guy on a monitoring project with the SX12 and it is also affected by a glitchy joystick, even though we're using the video feed. Sometimes it behaves erratically and turns in the opposite direction for a second and then turns back. However it never seems to have slow measurements. Basically a second or two every single time, but it doesn't have an active prism, so no switching between active and passive.
November 8, 2023 at 2:41 pm
Andy,
You may be working in ‘Standard’ or single shot mode (small S beside the Total Station icon)
It may be quicker for you to be in Track mode (small T beside the icon).
In track mode the current readings are available to store immediately – rather than triggering a full measurement cycle
Stakeout is always in track mode, which may be why you are seeing the difference
Change between the two modes on the Instrument functions page"
Personally I use a hot key for standard/track mode because I have to use it so frequently. When I'm working with another party chief using his DC it drives me nuts having to go to instrument functions to toggle it every time, as he doesn't have a hot key for it.
In conjunction with it, I have "pan to here" on another hot key so I can jump to where I am on the job at any time, with 2 button presses.
I wish shooting in staking didn't always override standard, because you have to reach over and press the measure button near the left side of the screen to actually measure inside the staking mode, not a big deal when I'm using a bipod but if I'm not it makes it trickier to stay plumb and reach over to shoot it. I doubt Trimble engineers are taking any feedback on this though.
It's Trimble. People are going to keep buying it no matter what, just like Apple. Don't forget, a lot of people using these are newbies and don't know what to expect, so they're not going to know that 7-10 seconds is not a normal industry standard and only a Trimble thing. And apparently even most Trimble users aren't aware of the difference yet. It may catch up to them but it will probably take a while and they will fix it when they actually are forced to.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mbjiHEvpDJsVYmY38
I am going to try this latest firmware update. I did update the firmware a while back and it's currently on 2.11.1 from June last year. As you can see, most of the recent updates included updates to support new hardware components, so components are being changed to support production of units. This makes me wonder if performance in some ways have been changed recently (such as speed of measurement in semi active mode). I assume the "bluetooth reconnection improvements" won't have any affect on the radio connection that we are typically using (cause that occasionally doesn't want to connect the first try - but that is rare).
