Laser marking system for total station

Looks like a cumbersome device. It's not something I would be interested in.

I don't get it? How about a 1 foot bipod or tripod... heh.

Maybe I'm missing something but it seems this is just like holding the rod still?

that's what i said to him! and if it's a tornado-y kind of day, grab 2 bars and make your own tripod with the 3rd leg being the prisim

What's the difference from putting the prism on a laser plummet tribrach on top of a tripod?

For anyone who is doing a lot of one-person layout on an easy access construction site, it may be an idea. Hands get full quickly. Then again, rigging up an old plastic milk crate may offer the same convenience to keep stuff together.

I do not think that the accuracy would be any better than using a quality mini-prism set-up; especially when seeing this present set-up where the prism seems to be 0.4m to 0.5m above the ground. And if the client is impress with the "0.000", for fun just rotate that 360 degree prism half a turn and see if the three zeros past the decimal are still there...

My main concern would be the reliability of the system. What if the platform goes out of adjustment (The leveling bubbles look like the ones found on standard low cost consumer grade levels), how good is this laser plummet (when compared to the ones produced by major manufacturers), what if it goes out of plumb or out of whack, etc.

In my opinion, a construction surveyor should try to eliminate source of errors as much as possible from the get go. This set up seems to add more risks without bringing real benefits.

Good to have ideas though, something may come out of this concept.

:beer:

How good would a level bubble or laser plummet need to be at those heights?

I hear you, Joe.

But if the idea is chasing 0.000 as mentioned in the testimonials, then I would say it has to be pretty good.

Not much of an answer, hein?

:beer:

Could be a hot ticket for nipping in the bud that last hundreth in certain critical measures on a building site, but only if you used a proper tilting prism, not the 360 type. Any nuclear reactor surveyors want to test one against current equipment??

Funny testimonial

>"Anyone who is involved with setting anchor bolts knows how costly things become when the steel or equipment doesn't fit - its a Surveyors nightmare....

How things have changed. I have done many anchor bolt asbuilts of pattern centers using a steel chain and a T-16. Never once had someone call back saying that there was an 'accuracy' problem with the survey. The steel always went in place, sometimes with a 12 pound sledge as a finishing hammer.

Now, all of a sudden, the high tech super accuracy comes into play and people are making mountains out of mole hills.

STEEL FIXERS will be out of a job...LOL

Steel works always has tolerances to make up for the deltas in set out and construction. Hot and cold extremes expansion and contraction steel make a mockery of 0.0000

RADU

Funny testimonial

I can see where it would have it's uses, made something similar out of a T-square and C- clamp once.

When I discovered sleeved anchor bolts and steel templates, it all became unnecessary. We request sleeves if not part of the original design, allows that teeny bit of adjustment for the steel erectors and we don't have to listen to them gripe because they need another 1/16th of an inch in the pattern to match up overhead. After the red iron is shimmed and stood, high tensile grout is poured into the sleeves, exceeding psi specs for the concrete or grout used in the slab or cap.

We have fab shops make steel templates of the bolt patterns, with centerline scribed or punched into the template. I set typically 10' offsets for our form guys, turn them loose with a stringline, then QC their work before calling for confirmation from QA/QC.

Back in the bad old days they would heat the bolts and bang them into line with a sledgehammer, today's regs don't allow heating resteel or bolts to deform them.

Solution looking for a problem?

As once described to me by a fellow from the Naval Research Labs ...