Is it possible for moisture to temporarily affect the reading of the horizontal circle?
Friday, I was working after dark with the robot. There was a short shower of rain. I packed up the robot without drying it. I left the robot in the box overnight. Normally I would have taken it out, and after drying it with a cloth, I would leave under a fan for a few hours, but that didnt happen.
Next day the Optical plummet was a bit cloudy. Still we went ahead did an as-built topo of 100 shots. Obs were done conventionally. When I downloaded the file the points were all over the place. On analyzing, it looks like the horizontal angle readings were 'drifting'. the distances look good. and the 'drift' seem to be happening in clusters. If I rotate the clusters about the station point, the clusters would make some sense. distances on shots to known points were good.
I went back yesterday and had absolutely no problems. obs to known points were good.
Anyone seen this before?
I am in the middle of the largest job I have had in years. I hope I dont have to send in for cleaning.
Any advise?
thanks
I can definitely see moisture causing this issue. The angle measurement methods don't waiver much from the glass circle supplying a reading, but that reading is typically created by looking through the markings on that circle. Most of the time when I see a glass circle that is dirty, it just won't read. I can only imagine that if it were "cloudy" you could still get a reading, but it would most definitely by skewed. I'd say if the instrument has dried out, and is turning proper angles again then it will survive. However, that moisture probably left a residue on the circle when it did dry and I would try to get it to a shop as soon as I could. Also, I would consider a field calibration for assurance that it's turning good angles.
What concerns me is that this amount of moisture was able to make it within the instrument. What type of robot are you using?
Kind Regards,
-D