We had to locate 234 driven wooden piles for an as-built survey.
Height was not needed, just position. But still it was going to take quite some time to locate each centre, level the prism and measure.
So I knocked up a device to quickly and easily locate the pile centres.
It worked really well.
Yup - an inverted waste basket with an attached prism
(sorry about the poor photo - the autofocus on my cheap camera doesn't like the wire mesh)
The piles turned out to be bigger than expected ( 300mm vs 250mm ) and it did not fit over them as planned, but it was easy to get the centre just sitting it on the cut ends.
So what's the best qizmo you guys have made?
I don't have photos handy, but here are a few of the one-off gizmos I've produced:
A short (1 foot-ish) fixed-leg tripod for use with an SNLL121 laser plummet in tying out/tying in monuments in holes or wells. I've used this a lot on monument preservation projects.
Another short fixed-leg tripod (smaller footprint than the above) for supporting an antenna over a mark in the top of a 10-foot granite column. (I haven't actually used this one yet.)
A couple of known-length bars that mount on a prism adapter, for use in precise tribrach height measurement when trig leveling across a river.
A pair of 10-foot PVC pipe handles that clamp onto a 25-foot fiberglass level rod with prism on top, allowing me to safely locate some valves that were in large (10' diameter?) and deep (15'?) excavated holes with unstable edges.
A robust housing for a Bluetooth radio that securely attaches to my data collector.
I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. Fabricating stuff like that is my idea of fun.
We had to do something similar this week with these yellow steel-concrete-filled bollards. Put the RMT on a sharpened correct thread bolt, however used the eyeometer to find the center. (The RMT bubble is not too flash).
Richard Imrie, post: 441283, member: 11256 wrote: used the eyeometer
:gammon:
Brad Ott, post: 441289, member: 197 wrote: :gammon:
Yes, the two that I have, I have had for as long as I can remember. They are auto focusing and can be adjusted for parallax and so far have never needed to be calibrated (touch-wood).
Mounted a round trailer tail light into a Wild prism carrier for a backlight during Polaris observations...
(Not to scale)
DDSM
I took a mag mount for a GPS antenna and attached an arm about 1.5' long and placed the robot prism on the end. I could drive slowly and locate road (rural) centerlines accurately and not be over the center.
We built a trailer hitch mounted GPS bracket once. We slipped the pole down into the bracket and used it for locating center lines of logging roads on a project. We mounted this on a side by side utv.
Richard Imrie, post: 441298, member: 11256 wrote: Yes, the two that I have, I have had for as long as I can remember. They are auto focusing and can be adjusted for parallax and so far have never needed to be calibrated (touch-wood).
My two auto-focus, parallax compensating, inertial stabilized, eye-o-meters are also data collector, range finder, and low order compass.
Old atv from years ago. Made a nice bracket of pvc, well triangulated.....that was before I learned to weld. Only picture I had was it stuck of course.
Early 90s, Trimble 4000SL days, long corridor topo project. Mounted the giant pizza pan L1 antenna to handle that straddles a total station. Given the 1-2 hr+ observation time back then, the crew ran topo with the antenna on top while collecting gps data. We had to do topo and gps control simultaneously.
A robust housing for a Bluetooth radio that securely attaches to my data collector.
I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. Fabricating stuff like that is my idea of fun.
Jim Frame
(How do I reference a post?) I saw Jim Frame's housing - really professional looking device. Makes me kick myself for not taking shop in high school.
jim.cox, post: 441255, member: 93 wrote: We had to locate 234 driven wooden piles for an as-built survey.
Height was not needed, just position. But still it was going to take quite some time to locate each centre, level the prism and measure.
So I knocked up a device to quickly and easily locate the pile centres.
It worked really well.
Yup - an inverted waste basket with an attached prism
(sorry about the poor photo - the autofocus on my cheap camera doesn't like the wire mesh)
The piles turned out to be bigger than expected ( 300mm vs 250mm ) and it did not fit over them as planned, but it was easy to get the centre just sitting it on the cut ends.
So what's the best qizmo you guys have made?
I use the same type of basket for percolation tests for septic design.
Soft bottom soundings using a 12' skiff with a small outboard. There was a brisk cross wind so it was not possible to hold the rod plumb from the boat.
Went shopping, got some 1" PVC pipe and fittings, we made a T base for a free standing fixed hight prism rod.
After being forced to improvise and use a grappling hook a float on a recovery line was added.
Raw sewer setting pond study at Lemoore Naval Air Station, California... several ponds.
The shores were lined with condoms.
Hazmat suits. Me, my ace assistant (woman), and a biologist/ health scientist type (woman).
Ann and I traded off instrument and boat duty, the scientist stayed in the boat taking samples.
Nobody got sick.
that was in the mid 90s
During the Ford expansion in Louisville, circa 1987, they were going to build vertically on the existing structural steel to expand their plant. We had to not only locate the structures as an as-built, but had to determine if any of the columns were out of plumb. With all the operations and equipment of an operational facility, it was not necessarily feasible to drop plumb bobs and measure any differentials.
So, the Pocket Surveyor was invented. We took a 3" diameter reflector like you would find on a bicycle (or roadway post) and mounted a threaded nut on the backside. From that, you could insert a 6" piece of all-thread into the rear of the unit after you climbed the column. Once the column had been vertically accessed, you would insert the all thread rod and then shoot in by the EDM in use at the time (Beetle, if I recall), the upper and lower elements of the column.
From that, you could determine, with reasonable accuracy, if any of the columns were out of plumb.
The key was, we had to measure a bunch of known points to establish baselines prior to using the Pocket Surveyor. From that, we had to determine the offset for the prism... seems like the offset went from -40 millimeters to +1200 or thereabouts. But, the item worked as we thought it might.
