Topcon Hiper V vs. Trimble R8(newest version)

I'd be interested in seeing this too. Long time Hiper user (just demoed one today actually) and would like to know how it compares.

Crickets chirping....

I used hyper Vs for several years, switched to R8s several months ago.
The Hyper V tends to gain bad initializations on a fairly regular basis. This happened even in open areas away from the truck. I have yet to get a bad initialization with the R8 setup.
The office work flow with Trimble has been far superior. This was true with both Magnet tools and Carlson. Magnet was the most horrific experience of my career.
Hope that helps, Tom

Thanks for the info. That's good to know, that's the first time I've heard of the hypers giving a bad fix on a routine basis

There's no doubt in my mind that Trimble Access is the best field software out there. I know a lot of people won't agree with that, but it's intuitive and powerful, and it will do everything you need if you take the time to learn it. I don't have any personal experience with Magnet but I haven't heard much good about it.

Trimble isn't perfect - nobody is - but I believe they're on a different level than everyone else with the possible exception of Leica, just because their hardware is so good.

Are you talking about a Fully enabled R8, and a fully enabled Topcon?
Not all things are as they seem.... all the time. Some dealers don't know what to enable, and don't even tell you that you have a partially enabled one... I don't know if the hipers are fully enabled, but I do know that R8's can be sold... with some options left out.

N

Yes I'm talking fully enabled.

Nate The Surveyor, post: 380688, member: 291 wrote: Are you talking about a Fully enabled R8, and a fully enabled Topcon?
Not all things are as they seem.... all the time. Some dealers don't know what to enable, and don't even tell you that you have a partially enabled one... I don't know if the hipers are fully enabled, but I do know that R8's can be sold... with some options left out.

N

Nate, what is your understanding of fully enabled? None of the options that you can purchase for your receiver will improve it's reliability - if it gives you a bad fix in open areas then there's nothing you can do except hope for a firmware upgrade that solves these issues. Nowadays nearly all of the dealers sell their receivers with GPS + GLONASS tracking enabled, and Galileo / BeiDou is not really usable at the moment worldwide. So what else is left that you really need? xFill / SmartLink? Faster position update rate? Base station functionality? There is nothing that you can enable for your receiver that will significally improve its performance - you can't improve network reception, you can't improve accuracy or how many correct fixed positions you can get in bad environment, multipath mitigation etc. Some of these things can be improved with firmware upgrades to some extent, but they are not options that one can enable or disable.

Trimble went from having three receivers (R4/R6/R8) to one - the R8s, "s" meaning scalable. I'm really not even sure what all is optional with them, we've never purchased one. If GLONASS and XFILL are options, it would certainly affect the reliability of the solution if you didn't purchase either of them.

I've never seen what was obviously a bad fix with an R8; I saw one once with a 5800 but as soon as we moved it a few feet it figured it out and threw out the solution. But I have seen the R8 report horizontal and vertical error estimates that were, shall we say, highly optimistic. The R8 and Access report the Hz & V at 67% confidence, which has been discussed at length on this board. If the Fixed / Float algorithm in the R8 model 2 or 3 thinks it's got the right integer values it's going to report low numbers in most cases.

I also saw a 5800 take a shot that had a vertical error of 0.5' but the statistics reported everything being good. As it turns out there was intermittent radio interference at the site that was probably caused by periodic voice traffic; it would knock out the radio but not for long enough for the data collector to report it. XFILL probably would have prevented that.

One other thing about Trimble - if you're willing to pop for a fully loaded R8s, you should look at the R10 instead. The R10 has several advantages over the R8s:

• Much more robust housing
• Much better battery
• Much better power button
• Smaller
• Much better Web GUI - this one doesn't matter to most people but I like being able to set it up as a base or for static easily with a tablet or smartphone
• Tilt sensors and magnetometers
• Better algorithms for converging on the solution, resulting in much more reliable error estimates
• XFILL (which may be available on the R8s, I don't know)

At first some of our crews didn't like them because they were used to the R8 lying to them, but after using them for 2 - 3 years everyone really likes them.

Not to be argumentative but I think having access to as many sats as possible from where ever is certainly an advantage in under canopy. I do not own either of the above units, but I have been able to do a complete lot survey with my equipment that my friend with a Hyper could not get a fix on any of the corners. His unit is only picking up Glonass and GPS. I have had a similar experience with Trimble R8 again the units was only picking up Glonass and GPS. Talk to Mark Silver. He is on this page.

Lee D, post: 380705, member: 7971 wrote: One other thing about Trimble - if you're willing to pop for a fully loaded R8s, you should look at the R10 instead. The R10 has several advantages over the R8s:

• Much more robust housing
• Much better battery
• Much better power button
• Smaller
• Much better Web GUI - this one doesn't matter to most people but I like being able to set it up as a base or for static easily with a tablet or smartphone
• Tilt sensors and magnetometers
• Better algorithms for converging on the solution, resulting in much more reliable error estimates
• XFILL (which may be available on the R8s, I don't know)

At first some of our crews didn't like them because they were used to the R8 lying to them, but after using them for 2 - 3 years everyone really likes them.

Thanks for the info everyone. Can I use the the Acceess software with a modern NON Trimble conventional total station?

It doesn't play well with Leica, or with third party robots. No problem with conventional Nikon, Sokkia, Topcon, Spectra.

TXSurveyor, post: 380759, member: 6719 wrote: Thanks for the info everyone. Can I use the the Acceess software with a modern NON Trimble conventional total station?

Yes, it's relatively simple to set up different Survey Styles in Access, but according to others doesn't work well with some brands. I use one TSC3 to run an R8-2, S3 Robotic TS, and an older Topcon GTS225 with no problem.

Edit: The only problem I encountered when connecting to the Topcon instrument with a conventional cable was the DC liking to enter sleep mode if untouched for 3 mins (I think that's the default time, it's built into Windows) and it would interrupt the instrument connection, losing my setup. It just doesn't detect a serial connection the same way as a bluetooth. My solution was to completely disable the auto-sleep function, I just make sure to turn it off when not in use.

Supposedly The last couple releases of Access will BT to Topcon and Sokkia. I haven't tried it.

I'm a long time Topcon user. With our original Hipers (no glonass) it was possible to get bad fixes but not out in the open. We are now using Hiper II's, which is an earlier version of the Hiper V, and the only way I can get a bad fix is to work in a place that is so bad your almost are sure you will get a bad fix. I kind of understand what Nate is saying, there are some options you have, such as multi path mitigation and glonass, that can be turned off and you wouldn't know it.

Is there really a receiver for which you can disable the multi-path mitigation as an option? Also you can clearly see the difference on the field betwwen enabled and disabled Glonass tracking (it will be the same with Galileo and BeiDou in future). One thing that could be missed is certain frequency tracking, GPS L5 for example, but as far as i know this is an option for almost all the receivers that are currently in the market.

What I am saying is simply be sure what options you have, and do not have. Pay attention.
I once got a version of firmware, that disabled Glonass, in my Javad. It was not funny!

N

I've never messed with it on my current GPS, but with our first HIper, yes there were certain items you could turn off, but I think you had to do when it was hooked up to a PC. Why you would want to turn off the multi path mitagation and the 1HZ update, I don't know but I think it had to do with the fact they were extra cost items at the time.