SECO

several years ago I bought some tribrachs that were supposedly SECO, but they turned out to be from China and the cheapest no-good things you ever imagined. Buyer beware. Just because it says SECO doesn't mean it is the real deal.

Jerry

> Does SECO manufacture any tribrachs in China? I am looking at a tribrach on EBay, and the picture shows a sticker on the tribach "Made in China". I always thought SECO manufactured all their hard products in Redding, CA, and soft products in Mexico.

Just contact SECO and ask them where their products are manufactured.

http://www.surveying.com/company/index.asp

This page claims that they make their own stuff.

It would seem that if it is Chinese junk it is probably counterfeit.B-)

I have a couple of these tribrachs. Agree that they are cheaply made. I carry them in a padded foam case after I had them checked out. Definitely not good for every day wear and tear like some of the other tribrachs out there.

I am sorry to have to even ask this question, but how much of any surveying equipment is still manufactured in the United States? I wanted to do a story on the manufacturing process of the plumb bob, but none are currently being made in the U.S. I'd have to travel to China. Very sad.

Trimble bought SECO not too long ago. They now sell imported stuff under the SECO brand in addition to the SECO manufactured stuff. For the most part the stuff actually made by SECO is good quality.

> Trimble bought SECO not too long ago.

I didn't know that. It's an unfortunate development, given overall Trimble business practices, but I guess that's progress...

They also bought Crain, which annoys me a lot. Crain prism poles were awesome.

>It's an unfortunate development, given overall Trimble business practices, but I guess that's progress...

Dear Mr. Frame:

We have been informed that you are the owner of the following SECO products [detailed list redacted] but have not purchased technical support for any of them. Many surveyors make the mistake of thinking "what can go wrong with a 2m fixed-height rod". Well please accept this bit of information: "plenty". Our engineers are right now working on several known bugs that cause the 2m pole to lose height at unpredictable moments during a session. Without a support contract, you may not be able to upgrade your 2m+/-0.1m pole to the new 2.00m pole.

We have also acquired the rights to market prism pole tips with 5/8" X 11 threads which will be available exclusively to customers with on-going support contracts.

As an added bonus, you will be able to upgrade your existing 2m pole to a triple-action GPS pole with GIS indicator light and real-time plumbing capability. Contact your local dealer for pricing.

Sincerely,

Adolf Von Braun, GPS Pole License Marketing Specialist

Spot on, Kent.

Pity that's not "comic relief".

SECO tricbach and tripod just purchased

I just bought a seco tribach With gps adaptor and a heavy duty tripod. They are made in china, I was not impressed with quality, the products look good, but the metal screws and fittings are very soft, the screw heads turned off when I tightened up the tripod as it was very floppy, the plastic fittings are also soft, one clamp hook has already broken.

The trichbach has to much play on it, so the gps head vibrates in the wind, I added some extra washers to stiffen it up.

The screws that hold the optical plummet focus knobs together came loose , I tried to tighten them up, but also turned off the heads.

These two products will not last long in the field, they were cheap and look like good products, but are not.

They are only to be used for a base station, so I was prepared to go for a lower quality product, but this is to low, bordering cheap junk.

I have an old wild gst 20 tripod that is over 20 years old that will outlast and do a better job than this new one. I think I will just sand it down, respray it and use that.

I have been impressed with all the other seco products have have purchased exept these two.

These products were purchased from a Trimble dealer, so I do not think they are fake seco products.

Thanks for the info. I knew SECO was purchased by Trimble, but I didn't know they started outsourcing their manufacturing to China. It is a shame the quality is going down, they always had a decent product.

To be clear, SECO does still manufacture equipment. However, they supplement their catalog with some imported knock offs and sell them under the SECO brand. For instance, I recently bought a bipod. SECO had 2 models for the size I was looking at. One was less expensive. I spoke with a distributer who educated me on the fact that the cheaper one was chinese and the more expensive one was the true SECO made item.

They still make good stuff. Unfortunately (now that they are Trimble) their brand is not clear on what is true SECO and what is cheap junk.

We bought some Seco tribrachs, and I don't think that they even had their name on it. I think that it just said, "made in China", and that's it. Not impressed.

I noticed that Nikon tribrachs are now being made in China too. They don't seem to be as good as they used to be either.

If it has optics in it, it's probably imported. Tribrachs, automatic levels, etc. Likewise aluminum tripods and aluminum leveling rods. Wood tripods could be imported or a combination of imported metal and domestic wood.

Retro prism glass comes from overseas, the hardware and assembly may be here or overseas.

For better or worse like most other items these days, the majority of products used in surveying are manufactured offshore. China, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, even India and Vietnam supply products to the big three as well small companies.

Consumables like paint, flagging, nails, field books have a better chance of being made in the U.S.

Imported products should be clearly labeled with a country of origin which the purchaser can see. But, this could be on the packaging and not the product. U.S. customs does not open every package of every shipment of imported products. Only random spot inspections. Shipments are cleared based on documents.

I think the only U.S. company that made tribrachs, optical and non, was K&E. I have a circa 1980 catalog showing three models, non OP, OP and Heavy Duty OP. But they are not Wild style. K&E chose to follow Zeiss when it designed the Eagle 60 and Vectron instruments and the tribrachs accept the Zeiss type axis, not three "legs." Brunson instrument might have made a few as they built a one minute optical theodolite similar to the old style T16.

I've seen an HP3820 total station sitting in a special larger tribrach. I think the tribrach had Fuji Koh on it and was made in Japan. Fuji Koh was the company making Path instruments for David White.

Most plumb bobs are made like screw machine products. Brass rod close to the desired diameter is used. There's a lot of "waste" which gets recycled. They'd cost more if there was no value to the scrap. I've heard of plumb bobs being cast in molds but finishing would still be required for the threads and finish.