Anchor Bolts to .01'

It is a tolerance standard for anchor bolts in the construction industry.

3mm's / 0.01'.

Whether it is truely achieved when considering all of the errors is a different thing, but if you are around there in quality of layout work, the steel people appreciate.

We had about 80 columns with 4 bolts each on a casino job. Max between any two was 0.02. Even that was a tad over the top....

I agree. How in the world he expects .01' between any two bolts on the project is almost dumbfounding. The closest bolts I've as-built are typically only within .02' and of course that's assuming I'm shooting them perfectly.

3 mm between them is very doable with the proper instrument. we use a Trimble S6 high accuracy model for deformation surveys, and our goal is 3 mm over the entire structure.

I agree that it can be done but my question is can the contractor get them that close.

I don't know if a contractor can actually set bolts in fresh concrete to +/- 0.01' between any two bolts.

But, I've had two steel jobs where the steel supplier asked me to as-built the bolts that the erector's layout crew had laid out, and the erectors had actually installed the bolts.

I was there to locate the bolts with +/- 1/8" precision so the steel supplier could shop fabricate all the baseplates custom for each column. If I remember correctly, many, many bolt patterns were off by 1/2" for some pairs!

So, instead of trying to hit the industrial tolerance, this erector and steel fabricator were more realistic, and set the baseplates up according to how well the bolt layout/installation crew did.

That seems much more reasonable than what's being asked here. I too often see bolts out up to a half inch.

I'm looking into getting a new robot (currently use a trimble 5603) and have heard a few bad things about the s6. My dealer/repair/service guy I use highly recommends the Leica over the trimble. How would you rate your experience with the S6? My only beef with it would be that I don't think Carlson would run it and I really like Carlson a lot.

We just bought a Leica TS15 robot. I love it - in an open job site. In the bush, it can get somewhat (a lot) frustrating, but I chock most of the frustration up to user error.

Granted, we've only been operating the TS15 and CS15 data collector for about two full weeks, so I personally have a lot of learning to do on "how best" to accomplish many tasks.

But, I just did an asbuilt of a subdivision with townhome condos, and was able to pickup 400 points with linework by myself in under 3.5 hours. Truly remarkable.

The data collector is indeed running Carlson SurvCE 4.0

We've historically been a Topcon shop, and been running TDS Rangers and SurveyPro, so the switch over has been not too bad.

I demoed a T3 from trimble, and a Spectra precision, a topcon PS??, along with the Leica. The Leica won hands down on speed of re-acquire lock, and of tracking the passive prism.

Even with all the "active track" malarky from trimble, and whatever Topcon calls their active track technology -> the Leica and it;s "only passive" tracking was simply mind blowingly good compared to the others.

Realize, 80% of my work is in the bush, running traverse for boundary with on the ground topo. That's the environment I did each multi-day demo of the different manufacturers.

As for stakeout, the Leica (probably Carlson puts the Leica) into track mode, and stakeout is a joy.

The poor sales team for the Topcon couldn't even get the Topcon to turn a double set-collect angle.

I would never bother with a topcon again I don't think and I too used them for many, many years exclusively. I'm going to demo both the s6 and Leica robot and see which one suits me better. My 5603 does quite well in brush and I'm surprised you didn't like the way the trimble performed in that regard since I would have thought the technology would have gotten even better. Every surveyor I've spoken with thus far does seem to like the Leica a bit better over the trimble. How would you rate the Leica for horizontal and vertical accuracy?

My only beef with it would be that I don't think Carlson would run it and I really like Carlson a lot.

Aloha, Donald: I was exploring Carlson Software recently. You are right. Trimble S6 is not supported...

It's really a shame that Trimble won't give Carlson the necessary information to run it but I suppose they think they have a good reason not to (plain old greed?).

> (plain old greed?).

Aloha, Donald: You very likely to be correct again...:-)

There is enough for their need...but not for their greedB-)

The precast elements will have various sleeves and other splices that will be cast into the element at the plant. These can't be modified when they arrive at the project. The jointing sleeves have up to one bar diameter tolerance. Embeds that are welded may have a bit more tolerance. So if you give the precast plant a little tolerance and the foundation a little it adds up. So maybe 0.01 feet seems tight but 0.02 feet is really starting to add up. A 40 foot long concrete element is not going to be as forgiving as say, steel columns. The connections will need to be online and spaced pretty good. So they are probably asking for 0.01 feet and hoping nothing is out more than 0.02 (or something along this line).

Anyway if they bring in a large crane and pick a large concrete element to set down over some protruding rebar (joint sleeves) and it doesn't fit somebody else is going to be out there measuring to the millimeter to figure out who got it wrong.

I'm in the process of setting up a small precast concrete plant to cast wall and floor elements for houses and small commercial buildings so I've looked into this quite a bit. The latest precast jointing systems need to be spot on for the most part so I'm not surprised they are asking for 0.01 feet even if that maybe a little difficult to achieve. You will just need to get the right tools for this work.

Carlson has zero processing capability beyond basic gun work. They are divergent products...

We just staked anchor bolt locations for a 90-foot steel square tube sign bridge a couple of weeks ago; these structures have VERY little tolerance for error. Redundant field checks are very important in my opinion, including using the old-fashioned steel chain if conditions permit.

Swami,

"There is enough for their need...but not for their greed"

thanks for the saying/proverb.

Lord knows i can relate it to my personal life, and i can think of a few folks that i will pass it onto in a semiquiet manner...including my kids, etc.

regarding the question of tolerances...the company that i worked for back in the '90's did some work for Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) and did a bit of work for quality control of the bolts in the conc bases for overheads. we kept our control short and checked the heck out of it before we tied down the bolts. in the end it didn't really matter that much if things were a bit off conc base to conc base. their concern was making sure that the fittings in the pole base worked together (ie. the bolts fit the steeeenking pole). they could make the stuff between the poles work, but if the poles didn't fit on the conc base then it would have to be removed and rebuilt.

not so much a $ thing as it was a timing thing regarding getting the construction done.

> Swami,
>
> "There is enough for their need...but not for their greed"
>
> thanks for the saying/proverb.
>
> Lord knows i can relate it to my personal life, and i can think of a few folks that i will pass it onto in a semiquiet manner...including my kids, etc.
>
Aloha, Frank:
Glad you liked it. I actually paraphrased the original saying. I believe it was by Mahatma Gandhi.

i coulda sworn it was Will Rogers talking about DC 😉

oops

sometimes the P & R would come in handy

by the way, which island are you on? i got an old roomate and friend living around Paia(sp) on Maui. went there to visit around '77. great place, but the tourist gals from Washington state were not particularly charitable if you catch my drift.