We recently purchased a Javad Triumph1, and here is an update as to how things went since then:
When we got it, we were planning on using it as a Rover, with an old Leagacy-E and a Pacific Crest ADL Radio as a base unit along with a Carlson Surveyor1 data collector. Seemed to work fine until the afternoon, when the ADL radio would apparently overheat in the Texas sun. Pacific Crest recommends to keep the radio in the shade, yeah right, set your base up in the shade?! So we ended up buying a Javad HPT435BT radio. Unfortunately, the Carlson data collector will not converse with the HPT435BT, but can be set up using the generic radio setting. The only problem is to change channels or power output we must connect a laptop to the radio. I am told that Carlson is working on fixing this problem. So we now have the radio set on one channel, and transmitting at 10 watts as I do not want to kill my base battery by always transmitting at 35 watts. So, how do we like it? Pretty much good news from the field, hardly ever losing radio at up to a mile distance while not in the best field conditions, lots of hills, valleys and trees. The Triumph gets decent fixes under some pretty heavy tree cover,and checks to known points are more than acceptable, in fact our vertical checks are better than horizontal, but I attribute that to our continuing drought, along with some recent rains, which seems to move our control around a little. In fact our biggest problem seems to be the learning curve as we move from Survey Pro to Carlson. As to collecting data, we really do like it. Oh, and so far as to support, Michael Glutting at Javad responds to my calls or emails within a very short time, and does his best to be sure to answer any questions I may have, even while he was vacationing in Hawaii! In conclusion, we are still learning the Carlson software, but the Triumph1 meets our expectations, and I would recommend it to other surveyors.
Yeah...but how is that shade of green, anything like the old Javad Legacy Frisbee antenaes" 😉
Too Hot???
Build a little roof over it, with a solar fan installed in it:
The sun will make them overheat. Shade helps alot.
The roof alone, will probably fix it.
Nate
We have a couple of Triumph 1's and are very happy with them. Instead of transmitting corrections over a uhf radio we went with the Javad internal CDMA modem and transmit corrections over our Verizon static IP network, works great but you do need to be in an area with cell phone coverage.
How fast does it use up a charged battery in 35 watt mode?
My trimmark3 takes about 12 hours on full power to use up a charge.
I have not used it in the 35 watt mode as I know it will run our 35ah battery too far down in an 8 hour day. If we are needing the power, as we will tomorrow when we make at tie to a Monument 2.4 miles away, then a check shot to a point we had run static on and processed through OPUS at a site a little less than 4 miles away. Generally, we set the power at 10 watts, which gives us a range of a mile plus, our battery lasts all day, and has not been replaced in almost 2 years.
Our Triumph is set up to take a sim card, and I do foresee using a RTN network in the future, but so many of our surveys take place in areas of sparse cell coverage. Plus, I still believe the positions gotten from a Base/Rover set up still beat those from a RTN network. (but then again, 7 years ago I would not do a hard surface topo with RTK, but I do not hesitate to do them now)
Get an optima blue top or red top, dry cell deep cycle battery. They will run all day.
Or a deep cycle marine.
Nate
We are using the Javad as an onsite "Base" but are transmitting corrections directly to the Internet using the internal CDMA modem. If we wanted we could also receive corrections from a RTN network but I also agree an onsite base is the best way to go.
A lot of surveyors have a base setup at their office and transmit corrections to an IP address but this allows us to setup the base anywhere we have cell coverage and transmit corrections to a specific ip address.
> Get an optima blue top or red top, dry cell deep cycle battery. They will run all day.
>
> Or a deep cycle marine.
>
> Nate
I think the Yellow Top Optima would perform better in this slow drain deep discharge scenario.
Thanks for posting this info. I used Javad before the Topcon hiatus and found the equipment performs extremely well. The only negative was the physical configuration of the units were always kind of cheesy and didn’t take rough use or bad weather as good as others, but I think that is because Javad doesn’t have a real good concept of what surveyors do in the field. I think Mr. Ashjaee is a brilliant GPS scientist but advertising a unit with an attractive woman that doesn’t realistically appear to be a surveyor, topoing with a wheeled golf caddy is not the best way to sell GPS units.
