I run a small construction layout company in Alberta. We do a fair bit of legal surveys too. Up until now a Sokkia SRX3 paired with Survey Pro 5.4 was the main total station for the field. It's been in use since 2013. Very solid instrument, never any issues with tracking or distances.
However lately somewhere between the robot, the RC handle, the RC controller, the data collector (Nomad) and the software some sort of gremlin/glitch started to appear that causes it all to freeze. Reboots, taking batteries out, new setups, etc become required. Very inconvenient when you are in the middle of a busy 6 lane road trying to stay alive...
I realize (part of) the problem is that we are using Sokkia hardware with Trimble software. It has always been a bit spotty. And it may be by design, haha...
I would very much like to stick to Survey Pro, as for construction layout it is beyond anything there is (IMHO). I've tried Field Genius, Access, Carlson, and Magnet... So whatever new gun we get it will be used with Survey Pro. We do have the latest 6.6.3 version too...
So, if I'm getting a new instrument I'm stuck with a seeming impossible choice (these are just my (+)'s and (-)'s):
1.) Sokkia iX: (+) small, lightweight, easy focusing, full featured display/keyboard, Japanese, dog whistle RC prism search; (-) potential issues with Survey Pro, unknown reliability of ultrasound motors
2.) Focus 35: (+) seamless integration with Survey Pro, cheap, tracking; (-) awkward focusing, build quality, Chinese, prism search
3.) Trimble S5/S7: (+) seamless integration with Survey Pro, tracking, build quality, Swedish; (-) rudimentary built in functions (needs DC), large active prism, awkward focusing
I may be missing some things...
I do like almost everything about the iX except the drivers/compatibility issues.?ÿ
For the Trimble instruments I really dislike the way you focus, I find it's taking me many many seconds to dial it just right. It's only an issue when using reflectorless, but we do quite a bit of that. And not being able to measure without a DC...
So, any suggestions..? Or is there another (modern) gun that will work with Survey Pro??ÿ
Thanks!
Ivo
I have no experience with focus or Trimble but do have some with survey pro and Sokkia ix. I hope most days a truck hits my ix. we have constant motor issues and radio issues. We have 3 of these combos each one has gotten at least 3 motor replacements one is on #5 I think in 2 or 3 years. We constantly get radio out of range messages about 100?? from the instrument. They are very sensitive to temperature change ( I do a tilt adjustment and colliminaton 1-3 times a day), vibration and walk out of 0 like crazy. I had an SRX and a SX before and they were both solid till my SRX got hit by a backhoe and my SX edm shutter went after 5 years.
Love my SX run by survey pro. No clue on Trimble. Had a focus. By far the worst piece of equipment I??ve ever run. Awful at tracking?ÿ
Further to my original post, I spoke with a colleague of mine and he mentioned that the Trimble(s) (that he has seen) may need to go for a calibration every year as they run out of calibration regularly. According to him the Focuses are better. So that's about $1K (canuck) every year.
Never had to deal with this with the Sokkia (so far), as it keeps calibration very well (against our provincial baseline)...?ÿ
Trimble recommends calibrating the total station either once a year or every 3000 hours of use, whichever comes first. But it doesn't prevent you from using the instruments - they don't "run out of calibration" in that sense.
There's nothing particularly special about that, though. If a total station is being used regularly, it should be calibrated once a year. Not sure about your area, but for us a sizable chunk of our project contracts specifically require that instrumentation be factory calibrated within the last year, within spec and documented as such. Doesn't cost much (certainly not $1000), can be rolled into billing rates, and shows the clients that we take care of our gear.
That being said, when I worked in a survey shop we had multiple customers come in with Trimble instruments that had not been calibrated for several years. Some of them were out of tolerance for factory calibration specs, but usually not by much. It's up to the operator to decide whether it's worth it or not. And even if other manufacturers don't recommend calibration every year, it doesn't mean that those instruments are not going to drift over the course of a year.
@rover83 Calibration for what specifically? The user of a Trimble total station can easily collimate the angles and auto-tracker. You could also have it calibrated, then right away go to a pair of geodetic/concrete monuments and then know your "good" distance. A calibration base line that has concrete pedestals would be the ideal location to avoid bubble/optical plummet errors.
Trimble robots automatically focus if you calibrate it correctly.
Basically all of the things which are needed to get that calibration certification that is required on a lot of top-dollar projects.
Alignment of the EDM and tracker, calibration of the EDM, servos, cameras, plus general cleaning and lubing of the internals, running computer diagnostics, and taking care of any service bulletins that popped up in the last year. I'm sure I am missing a few things. Some of them are addressed in the field calibration, some not.
For sure, field calibration will help keep the instrument in spec and it should be done quarterly at the very least, if not monthly. While we could send a crew to a calibration baseline for half a day, it's far cheaper and easier (and required for certain jobs) to just send it in to be calibrated on the fancy infinity baselines that the service shop uses. Especially when we have maintenance agreements and multiple (around thirty) instruments spread out across multiple states.
As complex and expensive as these things are, and considering how much we rely upon them, it is well worth it to have them regularly serviced, and easily rolled into billing rates.
