Ok I need some opinions on the Leica Controller vs the Allegro. I have not put my hands on the new Leica Controller but the older ones were unimpressive in the ruggedness department. Does anyone have any opinions on the new ones? How is the long range bluetooth vs the radio com? Smartworx vs Carlson? The Leica dealers are pushing the Leica controller obviously and are telling me that the Allegro with the radio pod is hard to come by and being phased out?
We have 2 Leica CS15 controllers they seem pretty rugged, but not bullet proof. I have been told that you can install Carlson Software on them. Our guys are getting the hang of the Leica software.
I've also been told that they are/have already phased out the radio for the Allegro, but that for a small price the radio 'handle' on the older Leica can be swapped for a long range bluetooth 'handle', enabling the use of Carlson/Allegro dcs.
As another option, we recently purchased a new allegro, sent our old unit with a radio to Juniper and had them place the old radio in the new unit.
We stick with dcs that run SurvCE ... no desire to switch software.
I have heard that you can rig long range BT on the allegro? rig being the key word. Has anyone done this? Also what kind of range are yall getting with the LR BT on the leica controller? I have lots of decisions to make and none are cheap.
We used allegros for years and recently traded them for Leica CS15. I am impressed with the CS15, it is much better than the old Leica controllers, but it should be. The older Leica controllers (1200 style) were terribly behind the times and the new CS15 has many improvements. The allegro style is old in the tech sense and should be near the end of its design life. It is a hell of a piece of equipment though.
I had latency and a few operational issues with my allegros and Carlson on the 1100 and 1200 robots that I am not experiencing with the CS15.
Smartworx has a much longer learning curve than Carlson, I haven’t used Smartworx enough to make a good comparison. There are goods and bads about each. If you have a “Carlson” work flow in the field you will have to make some changes to use Smartworx, I don’t like some of the changes.
i'm using a CS15 with both rtk and the robotic. seems rugged enough, though i'm fairly protective of it. certainly moreso than the last time i did regular (read: daily) field work- which would have amounted to the rangers and recons circa 10 years ago.
i've found smartworx to be absolute cake to navigate and use. initial set-up was a bit cumbersome, but no more than any other piece of equipment or software i've ever used. again, maybe my gap in field time over the past decade colors this a bit, and i have run trimble off and on in that time, but smartworx (this latest version, anyways) couldn't be more friendly to use. i have no qualms recommending it (against nothing, admittedly).