Need help choosing a robotic total station

You likely wonƒ??t find a surveyor here to help you suggest a piece of equipment that puts them out of a job. My advice, hire a competent surveyor to complete your layouts for you.?ÿ

Posted by: @aboonz

Can any data collector be used with any RTS? Different brand with different brand?

No. There are some dc softwares (Carlson SurvCE?ÿ and Spectra Precision Survey Pro are the 2 that come to mind) that are made to work with a lot of different makes and models. Even those will not serve absolutely all. It may depend on exactly which update of the dc software (and firmware on the instrument itself) is present.?ÿ Most dc's only work with a specific make/model of instrument.?ÿ

Software and dc hardware are generally sold as a unit. The software you pay for on one data collector cannot be loaded on another.

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@david-h

I don't agree with this line of thinking.  How is it different for Aboonz if he's using a tape and string or a TS to make his measurements?  I do tons of jobs where I stake the grid lines then the foundation crew comes in and sets up a TS (often times a robot) on my grid line offsets and does whatever detail layout they need from there.  I'm happy to not have to sweat the details they need and they're certainly not putting me out of a job by doing that level of layout themselves.  A TS is just a different form of tape and string. 

To answer the OP's original questions:

1. different brand to different brand - sometimes, but you're better off sticking with same - same.  It's just less headaches.

2. I have no experience with the Yuma.  Trimble makes good stuff so I'm sure it's solid.   

3. Depends. If you buy a complete setup from someone who has used it most likely it will already come with the software it needs.  I would recommend this path.

$5-7k is a pretty thin budget for a good robot and controller.  Push that budget up to $15k and you can get something that will last for a while and do everything you need.  Allen Precision has 1200 series Leica setups for that on their website right now. 

For your budget a Trimble 5600 with a TSC-2 data collector running Survey Controller will work for what you are doing.?ÿ

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Posted by: @true-corner

For your budget a Trimble 5600 with a TSC-2 data collector running Survey Controller will work for what you are doing.?ÿ

https://surveyorconnect.com/community/construction-mining/newbie-looking-for-his-first-robotic-total-station-need-advice/paged/2/

A thread from last November initiated by another contractor. The recommendation of the 5600?ÿ was discussed. My opinion then as know was the 5600 series might be suitable for someone already familiar with it's quirks, but more trouble than it's worth for a newby to the game.?ÿ

Unless you are working alone all the time I do not think you need a robot, look at a manual total station. Get something simple with on board functionality, you do not need a tablet or a data collector. Reflectorless capacity and red laser can be handy.?ÿ

For tight staking, especially in close quarters, robots are kind a pain in the ass.

Nikon comes to mind, one set of legs, one prism pole, one plumb bob and one sight card. Buy from a local shop so that you can get some "service after the sale".

How many foundations are you pinning at a time??ÿ?ÿ

David's suggestion of a 1200 Leica is solid, but get the plus series if you want it to be serviceable, the are phasing out the straight 1200's.

One word:?ÿ

LEICA

I would look for a used Trimble S6, or S5 with a TSC3 data collector. I would stay away from the tablet. Tablets in general are a pain in the field, especially with dirty hands, rain, etc. I would stay far away from Topcon, Sokkia robots, they work, but they will give you a lot of headaches.?ÿ

Another option I would look at is a good conventional TS. In your $$ range you can pick up a solid used Leica TS6, Trimble C5, Nikon NPL, Topcon GTS, all of which are very good conventional TS that can be ran with an external DC.?ÿ

Cameron is right though, if you really want a robot you better plan to up your game.

For you, I would look into a construction software like Leica ICON vs. a survey software that has way too much sh!t on it for what you need.?ÿ We outfit all of our concrete layout crews (all union carpenters) with toughpad type tablets running ICON and ICON series robotic Total Stations.?ÿ It's very simple and has great visuals since you can have background .dxf's underneath your points.?ÿ ?ÿ

@hooks

two (no three) words :

Sokkia or Topcon

Posted by: @stlsurveyor

. I would stay far away from Topcon, Sokkia robots, they work, but they will give you a lot of headaches.?ÿ

?ÿ

Which headaches? I work with Sokkia for more than 7 years and have had no problems at all on construction sites.?ÿ

@beuckie

lol... you’ll learn one day. I too was once like you. 

@hooks

if you like to keep paying for the leica marketing machine, be my guest. A company where you have to pay seperate for functionality on a dc (reference line, speciality stakeout,...) is a no go for me.

I'm on the LSF forum and see a lot of unsatisfied customers because of their exagerated pricing structure.

@beuckie

Plenty of people are unhappy with all kinds of things, but until you run a Leica robot you are in the dark. It ain’t the same game, it ain’t the same ball park. I started with a Topcon AP-L1A and ran every model up to the GT. The 10 year old leica robots walks the dog on a brand hammer new Topcon. Demo one, find out you have been doing it wrong, I did. 

And a Topcon RC unit? lol, GTFOH. LMAO. 

@hooks

i don't need a new one soon, besides staking out and measuring the odd obsolete hidden corner point everything is done with a scanner. And no, no Leica, only the best for this job, a Riegl 🙂

@hooks

I certainly agree that a Leica, any Leica, will vastly outperform a Topcon. But for a concrete contractor to do 20 points of layout the Topcon's ruggedness and lower up front cost may have more value that the Leica's speed and precision. Right tool for the right job.

Also, the Leica's software interface is always an issue. Once you learn to think in Swiss everything is fine, until then ....     

@hooks

I grew up in the survey world with Trimble everything.  Now living in the Construction world, switching to Leica was a bit of a pain but I'm getting used to it.  The accuracy has been surprising especially in the verticals.  I always had trouble with every Trimble S-series I used with elevations.  The biggest thing we hate about the Leica is that they don't have active prisms like the MT-1000 that Trimble has.  When our guys get on a floor slab and are laying out interior walls and the MEPF trades are zipping around with their Trimbles on their own channels, the Leica will hook on their prisms all of the time and it's quite frustrating.  I miss the mag drive of the Trimble too.  The servo drive is so slow especially when you're constantly doing searches because it got a sniff of another prism that crossed your line of sight and took off like a buck in rut.   I'm not sure what the new 70 and 80 series have in store yet but we are about to start changing out the fleet.

A Trimble will also outperform a Topcon and rival the Leica.  

Thanks for all the replies so far!

Here's a little more about how ?ÿI'd like to use the machine. 1st we would use it and the two offsets left by the surveyor to do a rough layout (within an inch or so) to set our initial stakes and then run strings between, Grade the string with transit, then we shovel dig the footer, set up boards and shoot grade with transit, then pour. ?ÿwe wait until the mud is kinda stiff and then chalk lines that represent the outsides of our walls that we later use to set up the wall forms, so this is the second time we would use the robot in a day and get it as precise as possible.

Tangent here: I've seen some RTS's that shoot a laser to a point, how accurate is that? We get everything to less than an 1/8th ?ÿwhen we layout now. How visible is that in full sun? I think this would be way easier than ?ÿhovering the stick over wet concrete, trying to get it super accurate and then having to drop it down to make a mark in the concrete.?ÿ

Next day we come and set up our wall forms, after everything is set up we currently use a 100'tape to check squares etc. I'd like to use the rts for this as well. Difficult to do standing on a 2x6 catwalk on top of a wall?

?ÿTypically the garage is a short wall only, so ?ÿthat footer is 4' above the grade of the house footer, how good is the elevation function on these things? There's typically only 4 points for the garage so rather then setting up the transit again would it be practical to use the rts to grade those points?

Throughout the course of one foundation we probably have at least 6 hours of layout right now, and for a footer it's usually 2 guys laying out and 2-3 more just standing around. So that's almost 40 man hours a week that I figure we'll save, plus the increased accuracy. If it were up to me I'd spend the 15k to get a good setup because it'll pay for itself in 3-4 months, but the boss is old-school and if he wasn't my father in law he'd have written the idea off already.

i'm 25 and pretty tech savvy, I'm familiar with the basics of autocad/revit/sketchup and have these programs on a laptop from my stint at school for 3d modeling that didn't ever take off ha ha.. so I'm pretty confident that I can figure it out, especially for the very simplistic way we'll be using it.

We pretty much do one wall at a time, sometimes we'll have two footers ready at once but usually not.

I had written off a manual total station just Because it seems slower? I figured no half measures, just go all the way. But if two guys can do the process above as easily in the same time then I'm open to it, everybody is on site at the same time anyways.