Robotic Instruments and SurvCE

Mark,

All of the Leica robotic total stations will work with Carlson. The older TPS1100 series, the TPS1200 series and even the new Viva TS15 series. The new TS15 series would requie you to use a Leica Viva CS controller with Carlson as far as I know. You may be able to use another data collector now with the TS15 but I would need to do some research to be sure. The issue would be with what communication (long range) device is in a collector plus I am not sure if Leica will allow you to purchase the needed GeoCOM command language option on anything other than a Leica CS controller.

The robot the Carlson is selling is a revamped Leica TPS1200 instrument that is still made by Leica but has the housing changed.

I can tell you about the APL1-A , I sold mine about 3 years ago but Carlson ran it like a champ . I now run a Topcon 9000 and its pretty good as well . the APL1-a was bullet proof , I should have kept mine but it sure was a heavy beast ...

Whatever robot you get, try to find a unit with reflectorless that is a very productive combination.

I have SurvCE on an older Ranger 200T, but rarely use it. When I do, I like it. The other solo guy that I team up with on a regular basis has TDS, so we use that. We have been talking about eventually moving over to SurvCE.

The SurvCE runs my Topcon GPT800A pretty good.

Hey Mark,

I too have been a diehard Carlson user, using it in office and data collectors for 10 plus years. I even went to the extreme of only purchasing field and office equipment that worked well with Carlson.
I am however unfortunately going to go with Topcon and TDS on my next equipment purchase.
I had a Leica 1100 with an allegro and it was the sweetest piece of equipment I ever owned.
On the advice of my dealer I upgraded to a Leica 1200 with a new MX allegro.
Bad move on my part, - Carlson is hardly visible on the allegro screen due to the fact the software is only written for color screens. Carlson is not willing to fix this problem.
I also have a big heartache with the performance of the new 1200 robot with the new Carlson. I had done a fair bit of hydro work with the 1100 robot and looked to continue that but due to the new updated software or the new allegro or the new robot (every vendor blames the other guy) the reaction time (latency) of the robot while tracking is double to triple the time of the older machine. I am unable to use the equipment for hydro work because of this. I have to say that as far as help, allegro is the best, Carlson can be helpful sometimes but they used to be allot better than they are now and in my experience it is a waste of time even calling Leica. It is never their fault and they are not interested in helping you unless it’s to purchase their newest and most expensive equipment.
My experiences.

We've used Carlson SURVCE for years with our Sokkia SRX robots with zero problems at all. I can highly recommend that combo.

i have used Survce with the Trimble 5603 and it worked great once you get the radio links setup.
To me i like SurveCe better and actually the radio connection on survece connects alot quicker.

About 6 months ago we traded in our topcon 825 robot. It was a solid instrument, but the tracking was always an issue. When I would be within 100 feet of the gun, I would have to walk very slowly so it would keep up. Most times I would just walk to my new location and use the RC-3 to get a quick lock. If you are using it for a lot of stakeout, you could probably find a better instrument. I used it with a Carlson Surveyor+ data collector, and there were no problems with SurvCE running the instrument. Two other things that always bugged me about the 825 was the mess of cables you had to deal with and the battery life was horrible. I had three batteries and, I still couldn't get an 8 hour day out of the instrument. Two of the batteries were re-celled, one was not. Currently running a Topcon ES-103, not a robot and you need two people, but the rodman can run the data collector during topo work which is really handy. SurvCE runs the new gun just fine too.

James

I'm going to demo a new ts12 with an allegro running surv ce tomorrow morning. I love the software, and hope all goes well...we don't want to go to Trimble. The rep told me our Carlson surveyor+ data collector would not work with the instrument for lack of internal 2.4Ghz radio, so we will have to purchase the new allegro. Does it not have a color screen? Because the model before it, the allegro CE, does.(we had one of those as well) . I will post results of the demo tomorrow afternoon if anyone is interested.

Carlson will run pretty much all of the Leica instruments. On the TS15 and the 1200 you have an option of running the Leica Collector or a Surveyor will a long range Bluetooth dongle.

Carlson will run the Trimble 5600 very well too.

There is no comparison in tracking between a Trimble 5600 or a Leica 1200 and a Topcon Robot. Topcon Robots are not know
For being good tracking instruments although you will occasionally find a diehard Topcon fan that will tell you different.

My advice, if your looking for usedake sure parts are still available. Parts are no longer available for Topcon APL1As, or 800's. parts have also been discontinued for the Trimble 5600's and Spectra Focus 10's.

Parts are still available and manufactured for the Leica 1200's.

Thanks for all the replies. I may look into the Leica 1100 a little further. What kind of batteries (size and number) are used and what kind of radio system is used at the rod?

Of course having the 5600 experience gives me a bias. I never had to struggle with the machine tracking me. I am glad to hear that SurvCE will work with it. Just hate the brick batteries / multiple chargers, and added cost of the RMT and powerstick.

What is the battery situation for the Topcon machines? Or the radio link with the rod? I take it some models only track the prism vs. an active system like the RMT.

Once again would love an S6 or Sokkia SRX, but not in the budget yet.

> On the advice of my dealer I upgraded to a Leica 1200 with a new MX allegro.
> Bad move on my part, - Carlson is hardly visible on the allegro screen due to the fact the software is only written for color screens. Carlson is not willing to fix this problem.

I'm not sure I'm following the logic here. Am I correct that you must now have a monochrome-screened Allegro MX? If so, have you tried adjusting the contrast, brightness or color-scheme of the Allegro? To my knowledge, all Allegro collectors share similar Windows Mobile themes, it is merely the screen of the unit that determines whether you see color or "monochrome" images. Presuming that you have a monochrome Allegro, was there a compelling reason to go with this particular model? I've been told that monochrome screens are being phased out and that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find monochrome units. Since SurvCE is written to honor the current "theme" (via Start -- Settings -- Today, see effects below), you might experiment with one of them and/or change the brightness and/or contrast of the display. Be mindful, however, that increasing the screen brightness will drain battery power more quickly. This being said, I'm fairly certain we wouldn't be able to make a business case to incur the time and effort to re-code the entire SurvCE interface to a B/W color scheme... it just wouldn't be practical.

> I also have a big heartache with the performance of the new 1200 robot with the new Carlson. I had done a fair bit of hydro work with the 1100 robot and looked to continue that but due to the new updated software or the new allegro or the new robot (every vendor blames the other guy) the reaction time (latency) of the robot while tracking is double to triple the time of the older machine. I am unable to use the equipment for hydro work because of this. I have to say that as far as help, allegro is the best, Carlson can be helpful sometimes but they used to be allot better than they are now and in my experience it is a waste of time even calling Leica.

It's difficult to say with any certainty what might be happening to cause the latency in robotic tracking. The current version of SurvCE is SurvCE 2.62 and you could pull this version down to see if it has any direct impact on the problem. However, about the best course of action I could suggest would be to search the published tracking specifications of the instrument and compare them against field measurements. You might even compare the current specs against the specs of your previous model. If you find the performance of the instrument to be below the published specifications, perhaps the unit needs service and your local equipment dealer should be able to assist you with that.

Ladd-Any chance SurvCE will run a Trimble S6 yet? I love everything Carlson and would make the switch in a heartbeat.

Wes

I'm just making the switch over to SurvCE, so don't have much field time yet with the combo, but I would reiterate the suggestion above - SurvCE appears to work well with my Sokkia SRX3. If I'm not mistaken, Sokkia chose to partner with Carlson when the SRX line first came out. I've been very pleased with customer support at Carlson. I would also second the suggestion to get a robot with reflectorless capabilities. You won't regret that choice.

I've seen the SRX robots on eBay from time to time. There's a 5 second one on sale now. I think you could get one for less than 10K$. What is your budget if I may ask?

> Ladd-Any chance SurvCE will run a Trimble S6 yet? I love everything Carlson and would make the switch in a heartbeat.

I can't say (mainly because I don't know). I'm sure that when and if the day ever does come, there would be press releases from at least one company (and preferably from both companies).

$6k to $10k is the range I am looking at. An SRX at $10K sounds good to me.

One other question regarding these robots. Which ones function well as a regular instrument with an attached data collector? In other words, some are probably a better replacement for my conventional total station than others.

Over the last few years, I'd say we use our SRX3 robot just as often as a conventional instrument, as we do solo. It works fine with a data collector at the instrument. You can use a data collector at either the instrument or the remote controller.

Ladd,
I have wasted much time talking with Carlson and Leica people about these issues and your simple suggestions in your response make me sound lazy.

Yes I do have a monochrome screen on my allegro mx as I did on my allegro ce; the SurvCE looked great on the mono screen prior to new releases so why did that all of a sudden change?
The mono screen is larger and much easier to see in extreme conditions, the mono screen was offered with no mention about the fact that you can’t see it very well. That’s all Carlson would have needed to do was to - not recommend it for mono screens because the new versions don’t support it.
My whole gripe is that dealers and manufacturers offer packages that don’t work well with each other. Unfortunately Leica and Carlson don’t think it’s worth even beta testing the options that they advertise as options. The product is advertised to perform a certain way and when it doesn’t everyone comes up with the responses like you – try the newest version, we can’t be responsible for that because that’s the other guys fault, etc.
The problems I have listed are real and neither Carlson nor Leica have fixed them, my dealer, Carlson or Leica didn’t offer to refund all my money for the falsely advertised equipment, they offered a reduced price on future purchases.
I don’t think it’s a complicated thing to comprehend; I researched the equipment, unfortunatly none of the equipment combinations were available at the time to demo so I assumed wrongly that they would do what they said they could do. I have learned my lesson and only comment to help the next guy make a better decision, I feel that if someone would have alerted me to these problems I wouldn’t have made the equipment purchases that I have made, wouldn’t have spent hours and hours trying to fix the problems and wouldn’t feel like I had been misled and ultimately cheated out of my hard earned money.

Mark,
I don’t know if a Leica person is following this but I had to get rid of my 1100 because Leica doesn’t service them any longer – just a note before you purchase one.
Good luck

Demo went great. We pick it up tomorrow. The tracking was excellent and when it lost me, the power search found me within about 10 seconds(in woods....not thick, but woods). I found the allegro to be just as good as our surveyor plus, but much less sturdy feeling. Not that big of a deal considering we do not plan on hammering stakes with it,( see video of surveyor plus on carlsons website). The best thing about Carlson software is its ability to run many different kinds of equipment. We went with the grz122 prism because I plan on putting my Champion rover on top...try doing that with survey pro.