Yesterday, during a beautiful and ideal data-gathering day just after noontime, 40 miles from the office and trying to get in several hours of work before the rain comes, I happened to jar, or slightly bump my two-year old Spectra Precision Ranger 3 running Survey Pro. Not a hard bump, mind you, but only a little thump. Maybe that was all it took, or maybe it caught the bump just right.....who knows? Anyway, my screen stopped responding to the stylus. Off, on, tried to reset screen cursor points.....not responding to screen touch. I used the keyboard and powered down and pulled the battery. Restarted, no change. And then, I pulled a dummy.....I made the mistake of locking the device by pressing the function key and the lock button. Guess what? The only way to unlock the device is to use the stylus to slide the unlock icon !! Well, since the screen is not responding to the stylus, I am dead in the water. Pulling the battery was no help...the unit scans the system files and restarts to the locked device mode. However, I did connect the Ranger to my computer and transfer all of my files. Thank goodness I was able to do that. But the Ranger is now a "brick." I even tried to find the "control-alt-delete" keys......
My dealer said that the Ranger 3 is having issues with bad screens, and that some of his clients have had their screens replaced at least once; one, three times. If this is a Spectra Precision hardware issue, then they should have their feet held to the fire to correct the problem. I have a rental coming that was over-nighted to the UPS store. It is going to cost $$$ to have the screen replaced or $ to re-connect a wire that fell off internally. I am tempted to reconnect that wire myself, but that would probably void any repairs that could be done and covered by Spectra Precision.
Has anyone else had screen trouble with the Ranger 3?
On a side note, ain't amazing to know that when we have an equipment failure in this battery-powered electronic world that we might as well just go back to the house?! I did some useful things, like researching for corners and doing some "occular" surveying, but I ran out of things to do and drove home in the daylight. My wife asked me, "what are you doing home so early?"
Oh, well. Another day, another dollar. :-/
I've replaced 2 this year (different DCs). I didn't even have to "bump" mine however. One minute they were working and the next they weren't. One was in January and one in March. Haven't had any trouble since then.
One of them did give a little warning for a few days. It requiring the screen to be 'aligned' several times. The next day it was junk.
Sadly, there really is nothing left to do but pack it up when the screen goes south.
If they are like the Trimble TSC's you better get ready to pay the piper. You can count on one screen a year per unit crapping out, unless of course you buy the firmware warranty then all of a sudden they run as long as your current. If I were a betting man, I would wager that their "unlock codes" have a little something something written in them that make them short out if you don't have the warranty 😉
Same thing happened to us a couple months ago. Had to send it back to spectra and had to fight with them to get the screen replaced. It was still under warranty, but they tried everything in the book to make us pay. Not sure if Spectra or our dealer replaced the screen, but we got it back 2 months later for no fee.
Well, the rental unit came in. It is running Survey Pro Version 5.0. I have had mine two years and it came with version 5.1. Well, just like AutoCADollars, it ain't backward compatible. So, I can either upgrade the software on a borrowed machine, OR obtain a copy of SurveyLink and see if it will convert to an earlier version. OR, maybe open the 5.1 file and export to a text file and re-import it, OR go to my pond and give it a flang.........:pissed:
HE he he he Ha ha hah!
Welcome to the world of TRIMBLE!
Just got ours back 2 days ago from having to get the screen replaced. It was only 14 months old. It also "warned" us by requiring we re-align the screen several times a day. Lengemann's(sp?), the company we bought it from said they bought a bad batch (?) and took care of replacing the screen for us at no cost.
Greg
I had several screens go out on TSC3's and got the bad batch story. Evidently there was a run of serial numbers and most of mine were in the "bad batch".
Does anyone out there have TBC and can convert a survey pro 5.1 file to a survey pro 5.0 file for me? I downloaded TBC, found where I could do it, but almost everything is locked. My e-mail address is rhdendy at Hotmail dot com.
I would very much appreciate it, and thanks in advance!
I have has a tsc2 and a tsc3 screen go bad, The tsc3 was replaced under warranty, but when the tcs2 went bad, I did not want to spend $1000 to replace as the tsc3 was already out, so I learnt to do everything via keyboard shortcuts, I was using access and can do everything via keyboard shortcuts exept:
Change the elevation height on the fly of a stake out point... I still want to learn that one though
Use the cad or dxf map to stake out, as you cannot select the line or point feature.
I got so used to using the keyboard, I only really use the touch screen for the above two items, I figure the touch screen can only take so many taps before it fails, so why not just use the keyboard....
You can use the keyboard for everything, even road module stake out.
footnote, from using the keyboard so much, some of the keys on the tsc2 popped off... I recently traded this unit in a new tsc3 and got a $2000 trade... 🙂
send it back and ask for a rental unit with the appropriate version
I have TBC but have not done any converting of files like this..email me the file and I will give it the ole college try though...pls4241atgmail
Must be the same as the Trimble TSC3. I am now more than comfortable now that opening up the unit and replacing the digitizer panel. The LCD displays are good but the digitizer overlay seems to fail. I that is for a device off warranty.
I finally got my Ranger rental unit to communicate with my GPS units. Two years ago, my sales rep set everything up for me, and I was trying to look, listen, and learn, but everything was going too fast and this was all new to me. I got my blue teeth to communicate, but I had a "no radio" issue. I called my rep on Sunday afternoon, and he walked me through the settings. The baud rate defaulted to a lower number than it needed, so all I had to do was change the baud rate! Now, I am ready to go to the field and get some work done.
On a side note, I went Saturday to gather some information on a church cemetery lot layout by shooting in the topo of the area. I used my Leica total station to do location work in preparation for a cemetery lot and block layout. I took my old HP48 as a primary data collector, and took the Ranger rental just in case. Well, I had taken the batteries out of the HP48 two years ago, so I got the "invalid card data" error message, and then the lost libraries error message. I could not remember how to re-load the libraries and I had left my instruction sheet back at the office 65 miles away. So, I hooked up the ranger and set up the instrument; everything worked like a charm. Prism constant checked and everything was good to go. I got in about 90 shots and finished at dark. I turned a church deacon into a field surveyor by showing him how to operate a prism pole, and he was "wowed" by the red laser edm, which was highly visible during that time of day. He was very impressed with how GPS works. Then I told him about the issues I was having with device connections and needing a cellphone acting as a local wiFi hotspot to connect to my GNSS network. My old "chain" was gathering dust somewhere in the archives, and the only time I use it anymore would be to "swear in my chain bearers". Obviously, I did about as much talking as I did working, but he was an old friend that I had not seen in years. I can do this since I own the company, it was a Saturday afternoon, and I am a solo operator! B-) I did have a chance to go by my son's house and play with my twin three year old grandgirls, which was the whole reason to do this on a Saturday afternoon! Delighted squeals and hearing "it's Paw Paw!" warms my heart very much!:-D
I have replaced the screen twice on a tsc2. The first time we paid trimble $870 in parts and $300 In labor to do the replacement.
3 years later, I ordered the part from China (ebay) for $75, and replaced it myself in less than an hour. I am not an electronics guy, but just went slow and careful, and there have been no problems with the Chinese screen.
