OK, so it not "official"; but, I did get my Nikon D-50 Topgun working again.
2 weeks ago on a Saturday, I was finishing an ALTA survey. I had tied everything I could with the GPS. Now it was time for the few items that could only be located by conventional total station. I broke out the old reliable (25+ yr old) Nikon. But, my wide-open, 150' distance couldn't be measured. I could hear it working like I was asking it to shot through heavy brush. It just wouldn't give me a distance. I was bummed. I love that gun.
At home later, I got brave and decided to open her up. I dismantled the top of the scope and began inspecting the circuit boards, looking for a loose wire or broken track. On the bottom of the first circuit board was a mirror. The mirror was a little foggy in spots; so, I cleaned it. Finding no other problems, I put everything back together.
It's been working perfectly since then. I felt like a genius; but, I know I just got lucky.
Anyone else ever get brave/desperate enough to open a total station?
> Anyone else ever get brave/desperate enough to open a total station?
I haven't yet, but...I'm tempted to see if I could build a Bluetooth radio into a Leica 703, rather than using a cable and Bluetooth dongle. All the newer guns have built in Bluetooth and it's so much better
Of course it's probably a terrible idea...
LOL you're right, that is a terrible idea!!
> LOL you're right, that is a terrible idea!!
Yes - quite high on the "I just ruined my gun" scale...but Bluetooth radios are so small!
I bet Jim Frame could do it...
> I bet Jim Frame could do it...
I bet I could get a bluetooth radio *into* a gun, but I don't have any reasonable expectation that either the gun *or* the radio would work after I was finished. Especially after I have to break out the hammer.
I have a couple of Wild T2000 instruments. One of them works, the other had its backup battery fail, so all its stored settings were lost. Absent an expensive trip to a Leica shop, it's a parts gun, but I only paid about $200 for it, so that's okay.
The parts gun has a dual display, the working gun only has one. I thought it'd be a snap to take the second display off the parts gun and put it on the working unit, so I began gingerly dismantling the parts gun in order to remove the second display. Not knowing my way around the instrument's insides, it was hard to suss out what had to be removed and in which order so that things wouldn't get mucked up.
After about an hour I decided to quit while I was ahead, without much progress to show for my time. I may yet tackle the job another day, but they cram so much delicate mechanical and electronic stuff into those instruments that disassembling them without guidance and training is not for the faint of heart.
With regard to misbehaving instruments, yesterday my TCRA1102 decided to rebel. I was chugging along productively on a topo when, without warning, it decided not to shoot in fast mode. I could shoot in standard mode, track mode and reflectorless mode, but not in fast mode, which is what I normally use for topo. I tried turning the gun on and off, and turning the data collector on and off. After several iterations of this I discovered that it would shoot in fast mode as long as I was at least 50 feet away. More powering up and down and varying the test distances, and suddenly it began operating normally again. No rhyme or reason to the hiccup that I could tell, but I lost about 20 minutes of my day and am now fretting that it's about to crap out on me.
