We have 2021.10. On one and 2023.10 on the other TSC7. Yeah I don’t think he is worried if i was laying down. We made some decent progress under the conditions we were working in. Keeping a short pole around helped for sure for a few points. Better than having to measure rounds to get a new control point for one set up to set one point. Lol. I don’t know the range of the Bluetooth. I think Bluetooth for Trimble is for just running it like a total station. I could be wrong. Never used it. Even if i were at the gun with dc i still left it in radio mode for whatever i was doing. I might have to try it myself. But not this week. I am beat. I am not use to toting a stake bag full of rebar and hammers caps stakes. This ild man is sore and tired. And i have another project 10 hrs north that i am headed straight for when done with this one. Plenty of work but no workers.
Just a tip on the short rod. I used to mount one of the old brick prisms between the bottom of the rod and the point so I could stand up and take the shot if I needed to get more accurate staking out anchor bolts, etc. Just put hand over top prism and get locked onto the bottom one, use the rod bubble for plumb. Can leave it on the rod, turn it backwards when not needed.
Lol I did that years ago. Before the robot days. So i man had to be on his game
It sure isn't an easy job sometimes for sure. That's why. I like to keep as many tools available as possible, including a Leica for reflectorless shots.
So I guess it's not the software versions causing the 7-10 second measurements, it must have been a change in the hardware itself. I'm guessing they were forced to source different parts (like I pointed out, many of the firmware updates were for updated parts). Guess I'll have to wait a couple years to see other people start complaining....none of our guys ever had Trimble total stations before, so they just assumed that was the normal operation.
How do you mount it to the bottom of the rod? I don't know what a brick prism is so hard for me to invision it. Also what would be the height difference? I've stuck my peanut prism in front of the active prism (after switching prism modes in access) but i can't imagine it locking to the prism at the bottom of my pole...since it's so fussy about vertical angle to get a lock even with the multi track prism. Often I use "turn to" and put it to 90 degrees (if I'm on flat ground) to get a lock. Just because I can see the guidelights flashing green and yellow doesn't mean it's close enough to lock onto the prism.
A lot of old prism had a spot for a candy cane to set on top of them for sighting horizontally. So not all fancy like today’s prisms. There were rectangular ones square round all sorts same 5/8 all thread so you could stack prisms on top of prisms. The old edm’s only not total station built in like today’s. You simply set up and shot a distance. For miles. A lot of the first edms were bigger than today’s total stations and were not used for short distances. Red ranger was one of the smaller ones. I know were 15 of those are today. Hardly ever used. Look like new. Later they had some that mounted above the transit or theodolites and eventually made them internal which became the birth of the total station . Mush like we have today. So when measuring rounds or sets of angles in direct and reverse. For a traverse. I would remove the top mount edm from my Wild T1000 digital transit. Turn all the angles direct and reverse. Then mount the edm and shoot the distance forward and backwards. Now the darn things do it all for u as you sit patiently waiting. Lol.
It must be remembered that OUAT, not so very long ago, it was frequently necessary to measure very long distances with the EDM. The sort of distances that would typically be measured via GPS today. And it was necessary for the total station operator to actually see the target through the scope at those distances. Hence, prisms needed to be big and to have big bright colored targets associated with them.
I can't remember he last time I aimed at a target by looking through the scope. The very idea must seem quant to a surveyor under the age of 40.
So true. After the first afternoon on this project. Which was mostly drive time and getting supplies finding control etc. I found a good long flat area with a tower near by to run through all the collimation adjustments etc. the other crew had never done that before. Never. The crew chief gave me the deer and headlights look as i said make sure when doing your sighting to get all parralax out. Then i had to explain. Not his fault its the lack of training. Here the dc. Push this and that do this bam you are now a Party Chief in charge. What amazes me is. I hear all the negative talk about the younger folks not wanting to work no retention etc. They don’t know what to do we have to do it this way and only this way to monitor blunders etc. what i see is a generation that wants to learn. And i hate to say it but I spent 20 minutes on the tailgate with a scratch pad and had him computing inverses long hand and right triangles and he didn’t just perform that he quickly understood and was able to now see what the data collector was doing. He wants to learn. Yes he is very techy and loves that stuff. But he picked my brain the rest of the week on how is this done how does the data collector know what to turn to for stake out. And he was a hard worker. Made me wear myself out because of my old pride and i was not going to let some young buck drive more rebars than me. Lol. My crew chief knew i was hurting . Every morning he said let me set everything up just relax. But i said nope get field book set up job set up i will get signs out back site etc But i will moan and cry all weekend trying to heal up. I foresee an epsom salt bath coming soon lol.
What all do you stake in subdivisions. Man if i would have had a robot to do subdivisions layout back years ago i would have been tickled pink. We set pc pt and ran cl of roads out traversing along the routes curves etc. steel tape a lot of stuff. No data collector for a while. Oppiste over adjacent. Angles left and right set the offsets at pc pt for back of curb set up site line. I man keeping everything online as we steel taped evey 50 ft except in curves and vertical curves. Right angle prism and plumb bob was on your side always. Even when the dc was really shining we would often set the pc pt radially and then just set gun up site and tape in. But robots eliminated the 3 man crew. I would say labor cost was deciding factor. Because a well oiled 3 man crew I guarantee could walk the dog and drag the pup on a two man robot crew. In many instances. I see a lot of one man crews doing layout. My crew chief was one of them all by himself staking. If i had to do that every day by myself i don’t think i would last long today. I would want atleast a bucket toter . I love a robot but i don’t think they are faster than a 3 man crew on a topo. A good i man could keep two rods hopping and cover a lot of ground but labor cost is a thing for sure.
This is a Geodimeter brick prism, or RMT. The tilting frame comes off with the 2 thumbscrews on the sides, there’s a threaded 5/8 hole in the top of the solid piece and one in the bottom. 0 prism constant. They have a diode that was used by the geodimeters and early Trimbles.
The extra few seconds you are seeing is the price you pay for using the MT1000 in Semi-Active. If you want it to be the same as the Leicas you have used (which I think is the main issue really) then use the prism in passive mode like a Leica prism.
Yes, I've come to realize that it is what it is. I can use passive on pinnings where I know I'll be able to tape everything at the end. The difference is that the s series really does need the active prism, because it's a night and day difference between them and Leica's when it comes to getting locked onto non prism targets. I just never saw anyone talk about it, so it was a surprise the first time I used one, I assumed it had a setting wrong or something.
For me it would be yesterday. I sure hope the scope doesn't disappear from all future TS's, just like the SX12. There are still times where you want to look through the scope. I've used video feed on the sx12 and it works, but sometimes it can be pretty tricky. Continually losing features, before they're actually useless is kind of annoying.
Also I kind of enjoy shooting building corners manually from the TS itself with a coworker holding the peanut prism.
Yeah, I am 40 and I've worked lately with a couple 18-20 year olds and they were hard workers and asked questions. Our field doesn't exactly attract the average person, so most of our guys are going to be different in their own way and none of them are the stereotypical lazy kid.
We stake for excavation (4' offsets with wood stakes, set within 0.10m) with a single cut stake for USF grade. Then we pin for footings, (outside corner of wall) and for some builders/jobs we come back and layout the walls again on the footings. Final visit is the final survey, including shooting property corners and resetting any as needed. That's the majority of my work, but its slowed down lately as the housing market has slowed, so I'm doing mostly rural jobs now with another party chief. It's amazing how fast 2 party chiefs can get jobs done, when we're used to working with someone inexperienced.
As for the layout, yeah it's pretty incredible how fast it can be done with a robot. The biggest struggle is pinning in shot rock, trying to get the nail within 0.010m when it keeps hitting larger rocks just below the surface. The rare times that it is clay, it's amazing how much faster it is.
Never heard the RMT called a brick prism. I was thinking more along the lines of the old rectangular bracket the held several prisms. That is the one thing I wish a Trimble would have added to their traverse kit prism for S series is the ability to have that Active type capability. Especially when turning rounds solo and across traffic. The old geometers were some work horses. Just a heavy beast when traversing through the woods or hills mountains areas. But once set up on a job site for staking it would shine in its day.
