HP 3800A Distance Meter Operating Manual

I'll need to scan it to a pdf but I've got it. About 40 pages

Check your private messages on this website.?ÿ

I loved that instrument even though the optics lacked a bit.?ÿ I guess it was about 1975 and I went to work for an outfit that had just purchased one.?ÿ It was like I had been magically transported into the future.?ÿ We were closing up raw field work in the neighborhood of 1:60K when weeks earlier we were pulling the leather thongs off of chains trying to get 1:5K.?ÿ

I thought I had died and gone to surveyor's heaven.

Make sure it has the attenuator cap for the shorter measurements - kind of a one way mirror?ÿ

I started on one of these back in 80 - just used it for the control and we chained everything else

Once I got to Cali I saw that people used it with the?ÿ instrument to do stake out - set next to the?ÿ gun and they had an HP41 program to take the angles and distance and reduce it to a distance from the gun - My chief had the new 3820 coaxial total station and that was the game changer

Side note the other chief was color blind and had to use a magnifying glass to read each digit of the 3810?ÿ they had

@rkinnie Mine came with 2 of those mirrored caps. The batteries in the 3801A Power a unit are dead (big surprise after 5-0 years) so the next project is finding a replacement to install.?ÿ

@rockethurricane?ÿ

I replaced my 3800 battery at a battery shop for about 50$ but that's been several years back . Then I let it sit. grrr

I just got a 3805A. It was owned by a university. Itƒ??s like new. I toted a 3800 for years in late 70s running long traverses fir aerial mapping control.?ÿ

I used a 3810a one summer. We would stick 3 fingers in front of the lens for short shots. I didn't know anything about an attenuator cap.

The?ÿ 6 man outfit I worked for (two engineers, 3 surveyors) bought one in the early seventies for big bucks (first one in Eastern Washington?) and it really sped up route surveying in open country, also quick work establishing control.?ÿ We made big bucks on projects with it and also subbed for firms without EDM capabilities for a nice profit.

The stinker was within a few years EDM mounted on theodolites became available and the 3800 became a dinosaur.?ÿ It was onerously heavy but had fantastic range.?ÿ One odd problem was it could shoot to multiple prisms but if they were way beyond 5,000 meters (+-?) the internals would reset to zero and report only the excess over, corrected by temp and altitude, so you had to manually correct for the first 5,000m.

@mike-marks I believe the 3800A readout only goes to 9999.99 feet and the 3800B readout is to 2999.99 meters (or something like that!). How did you measure beyond the display capacity?

@rockethurricane?ÿ

you know if youƒ??re shooting, say 2 mi. (Roughly 10560ƒ??). When you get 0558xx the 1 is on you to know better.?ÿ

@rockethurricane That's was the 3805 wasn't it. HP sent us a chart that had a correction never you added to the readout and a correction factor you applied to get the final distance.

The 3800 had switches you centered the needle to get the digit for each unit. They were damn accurate measurers.

We had a tribracket adapter that you measured the horizon and vertical angles with a Wild T2, removed it, put the HP in the bracket and then shot the distance. That and a helicopter and the impossible job became easy.

Hello all. I got a replacement battery in my HP3801 Power Unit and it seems to be putting out power. thru the cable. I hooked the power unit up to the HP 3800 and moved the slide from off to the first position and...nothing. No apparent noise from the unit, the meters aren't moving at all, no sign of life. The unit is just sitting on the bench so I don't actually have it pointed at a reflector. My question is does anyone remember if there should be any visible signs that its functioning when its just connected to the power unit? I really don't remember myself, it was just too long ago and I only used one of these a couple of times. Looking for any hints before I try and dig deeper into it.

Thanks!

Need a return signal if I recall. Not sure I recall so well.?ÿ

An update on the old HP 3800A Distance Meter. I found a service manual online which shows there is a fuse mounted on the internal circuit board in addition to the 2 externally accessible fuses. I pulled out the circuit board, and yep, that fuse was blown. Installed a new fuse and the power supply came to life. Set everything up in the basement and took a shot (with the attenuator cap on!) and it seems to be fully operational! Now I need to find an easily accessible known long line to really test it on!

@norm Just read your post about having a copy of the hp 3800a distance meter and you were going to scan it. If you did would it be posable to get a copy. I purchased a 3800a back in 1971 and what a job they did. Thanks Syd Rapp

@norm Hi I know this is an old post but I am hoping you still have the 3800 Manual around.

Ridge Line to Ridge Line, simply magic!. 3800 1978. Then we got a spanky new McHenry top mount!

In 1972 the engineering company where I worked bought a 3800. A few months later my boss was showing around some instructions he had for wiring a 12 volt battery to power the 3800. He was asking if anyone knew somebody who could do this. I told him I thought I could do it. I used a 12 volt motorcycle battery and battery life was no longer a problem.