I have used Wild andor Leica products for a long time and have always been impressed with them however no matter how good they are they cannot escape market economics. In this day and age where things are more circuit boards and plastic or stamps parts I have been wondering if they are still all that, particularly the accessories.
I look at the manufacturer tag on the tribrachs, carriers, prism assemblies and all the other little things and nearly all of them are made elsewhere, Malaysia, Hungary, etc.. so they are contracting out a lot of theor work as is every other manufacturer. Now I look at the tribrachs and they are not the finely crafted and machined piece of metal from the Wild days and are instead more cast pot metal assemblies.
So......is there still a real difference between the Leica accessories or have they become the same as the others and making stuff that is no different than a generic? If you go on Ebay you can find generics or clones of every name brand and I've been wondering if all these clones are the real deal and the name brands are just rebranded clones.
Is it real or is it Memorex? Is the price difference worth it?
I'll probably get flamed over this, but since I merged my solo firm with a larger firm, I now have crews that are pretty good with equipment, but not like I am with my personal gear.
I needed to purchase some new prisms for the crews for traversing. I picked out some "generic" prisms with targets off of ebay, because I needed about 6 of them. I paid about $45 each for them, and they were from China. They arrived in about a week, and low and behold, when I opened the box, they were the same exact prisms that one of the local dealers was selling for about $100 each, and the ones I opened actually had the same exact Topcon logo on them that my genuine Topcon gear has on it.
I know it's not Leica, but it really makes me wonder.
That's my whole issue. By every visible appearance the clone is the same as the name brand. Seco makes a lot of stuff that look identical to the other manufacturers and CST probably does as well so I must wonder do they make the accessories for the other manufacturers and we stupidly pay more.
Years ago you knew what you were getting when you bought a Wild Tribrach or a Topcon Tribrach, etc etc.. But if I fork over 400 bucks for a Leica tribrach am I paying 250 more than necessary?
A successful business has to be up and running all the time - you have to be responsive. So unless you can afford a bunch of backup gear, I think dealer support is more important than brand (assuming that you aren't using bottom of the barrel brand X gear).
All gear and software has pluses and minuses but your dealer is who will lend you gear when yours is down - your dealer will tell you what gear has problems and steer you away from the problems. Do you have a good dealer in your area?
If so, use whatever they recommend and support.
When we were gearing up the Leica dealer was great and the Trimble dealer was a PITA. Even though we had more Trimble experience and knew their software better at the time - we're a Leica shop.
We pay more for some stuff - that's OK because we are investing in local access to expertise and gear - in return, if something breaks, they'll tell us to come by and pick up a loaner till ours is fixed - win-win.
I don't know what approach to take If you don't have a good local dealer.
JKinAK, post: 438970, member: 7219 wrote: A successful business has to be up and running all the time - you have to be responsive. So unless you can afford a bunch of backup gear, I think dealer support is more important than brand (assuming that you aren't using bottom of the barrel brand X gear).
All gear and software has pluses and minuses but your dealer is who will lend you gear when yours is down - your dealer will tell you what gear has problems and steer you away from the problems. Do you have a good dealer in your area?
If so, use whatever they recommend and support.When we were gearing up the Leica dealer was great and the Trimble dealer was a PITA. Even though we had more Trimble experience and knew their software better at the time - we're a Leica shop.
We pay more for some stuff - that's OK because we are investing in local access to expertise and gear - in return, if something breaks, they'll tell us to come by and pick up a loaner till ours is fixed - win-win.I don't know what approach to take If you don't have a good local dealer.
In most situations in would agree with you completely however my local Leica dealer (Allen Precision) sells branded Leica stuff but they also sell CST and Seco gear and accessories. So it would seem that the choices are to pay more money for Leica stuff for possibly no other reason than being foolish.
I mean if there was a problem with the others I mentioned why would the dealer sell those products?
And a friend who works for Leica told me that Leica owns Seco and if they are selling CST gear they probably own them as well. So the choice is not quite so clear.
Money for nothing and you chick's for free.
SECO is owned by Trimble (since 2008 I think).
Leica is part of HEXAGON (Sweden).
Loyal
Loyal, post: 438973, member: 228 wrote: SECO is owned by Trimble (since 2008 I think).
Leica is part of HEXAGON (Sweden).
Loyal
Well I'll be......either he told me wrong or I heard him wrong. Yeah I know about Hexagon.
I have no idea about the manufacturing practices of surveying hardware companies from overseas. I can shed some light from my experiences with motorcycle parts however.
A wholesaler (or any branded reputable retailer) usually orders parts from manufacturers en masse with specifications. They can usually come up with an outfit in (for example) Sri Lanka or Malaysia that is priced competitively. What happens is a certain percentage of these parts don't pass the rigid QC of the reputable branded wholesaler or retailer and are rejected. Since they all made it over here in a shipping container with Maersk painted on the side, returning them involves doubling the shipping cost of a part that the client won't accept. They are auctioned on this side of the pond to various folks that make a living in turning the 'seconds'.
So one may very well be able to purchase an item for a fraction of the cost ($45) that appears to be exactly the same as the $100 unit sold by the branded firm; but didn't pass their QC.
Sometimes it may not actually matter; the unit may be just as serviceable as one that passed QC. Sometimes the trouble may only be paint thickness or thread quality. Sometimes it may be something deeper....
Bottom line, if there is a great difference in price there is a reason for that difference other than a wholesalers "mark up". Trust me, the big boys are trying hard to keep competitive. None of them are probably guilty of whimsically high markup just for profit's sake.
Trimble also owns Crain
http://investor.trimble.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=325108
A few random ramblings...
- When I was purchasing for a large engineering company I bought everything Leica; instrument, heavy duty tripods, Series 5000 tribrachs carriers and glass. I didn't compare it to anything else, but I knew with that equipment my crews would consistently run 5,000 - 8,000 foot loops with a dozen stations or more and almost never have an unadjusted closure of less than 1 in 300,000 unless there was a blunder of some sort.
- If you do a lot of precision work; monitoring, precise building control, etc. that helps you sleep at night. If you're running a farm boundary with a deed from the 1800's that doesn't close by 50', from a stump to a stone, not so much. Where I'm at now it's mostly suburban/exurban/rural boundary and residential stakeout. Ocassionaly having 0.015' in a backsite doesn't concern me as much these days.
- A few (or even more than a few) hundred bucks on an accessory seems like a lot, but over a 2,000+ day lifespan, it's really not so much. Plus it's all going to be depreciated anyway; in the words of Kramer from Seinfeld "it's a write-off Jerry".
- I'm not concerned about where a Leica product is manufactured as long as the engineering and qc comes from Heerbrugg. If they are just buying and relabeling from another company that controls the design and manufacturing, that would concern me. That said, I have no idea which of the two they are doing.
- What...no love for Hungary? Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland are the future of Europe and may be the last stand for the West against the secular postmodern world. 🙂
Here, we are a Trimble shop.
But we are buying Leica tribrachs because the Trimble ones are very poor quality - lightweight pot-metal, thin paint, frangible locks....
Well, I'd never sell-out my products to big brother, no matter how much they offered.
Given Trimble's predatory nature, I do wonder how many offers Carlson has turned down
Can't be long before they get swallowed up
And I'm sure Schonstedt must be on their want list too
Just A. Surveyor, post: 438971, member: 12855 wrote: In most situations in would agree with you completely however my local Leica dealer (Allen Precision) sells branded Leica stuff but they also sell CST and Seco gear and accessories. So it would seem that the choices are to pay more money for Leica stuff for possibly no other reason than being foolish.
I mean if there was a problem with the others I mentioned why would the dealer sell those products?
They carry everything because some people want what they want - even if it's throwing money away. Some people want cheap and some people want gold plated. I want functional and reliable. I could go into our dealer - tell them what I was trying to achieve and, believe it or not, they'd help me select the best gear for the task - even telling me - you don't need such and such because this one does the same thing for half the price! They'd tell me what was crap and they'd tell me where it was worth spending money. I realize this is rare. If there is someone at APE that will provide that kind of support then make sure you develop and maintain a good friendship with that person.
Richard Imrie, post: 438984, member: 11256 wrote: Well, I'd never sell-out my products to big brother, no matter how much they offered.
Maybe you can get some custom Imrie gear straight from the source - unfortunately shipping would probably be pricey and slow.
Any intel on which one has dibs on Javad?
Just A. Surveyor, post: 438963, member: 12855 wrote: I have used Wild andor Leica products for a long time and have always been impressed with them however no matter how good they are they cannot escape market economics. In this day and age where things are more circuit boards and plastic or stamps parts I have been wondering if they are still all that, particularly the accessories.
I look at the manufacturer tag on the tribrachs, carriers, prism assemblies and all the other little things and nearly all of them are made elsewhere, Malaysia, Hungary, etc.. so they are contracting out a lot of theor work as is every other manufacturer. Now I look at the tribrachs and they are not the finely crafted and machined piece of metal from the Wild days and are instead more cast pot metal assemblies.
So......is there still a real difference between the Leica accessories or have they become the same as the others and making stuff that is no different than a generic? If you go on Ebay you can find generics or clones of every name brand and I've been wondering if all these clones are the real deal and the name brands are just rebranded clones.
Is it real or is it Memorex? Is the price difference worth it?
Our Leica TS06 Plus guns we just bought are amazing. Are they the same quality as a T2, I don't know. I never HAD to run one of them. They are well built and "seem" better than the TopCons we had been running for years.
Richard Imrie, post: 438997, member: 11256 wrote: Any intel on which one has dibs on Javad?
Javad himself has a little to say about that in this months American Surveyor. Here's a link http://amerisurv.com/emag/2017/vol14no8/index.html
If you want Leica quality without Leica pricing, take a look at GeoMax. The guns are a generation back, but aside from color seem to be genuine Leica.
Jim Frame, post: 439028, member: 10 wrote: If you want Leica quality without Leica pricing, take a look at GeoMax. The guns are a generation back, but aside from color seem to be genuine Leica.
A GeoMax (Leica 1201 Robot) is my next robot along with their GPS. A generation old is not a worry as I'm a couple generations old myself.
From my experience, I'd be willing to spend extra on accessories if they are of good quality. A prism or tribrach for instance may last one's entire career.
Shawn Billings, post: 439050, member: 6521 wrote: From my experience, I'd be willing to spend extra on accessories if they are of good quality. A prism or tribrach for instance may last one's entire career.
Spending the extra money is not the sole point of my post. My post was basically about how do you know what you're getting anymore when the big name manufacturers sub contract all their work to a 3rd party vendor. And then that very same 3rd party vendor sells the generic name brand for 12 price. How do we know what we are getting and more importantly how do we know we are not paying more money for no good reason.
