Topcon OS and Magnet

I suggest more than a quick demo no matter what brand you are looking at.

I bought my Topcon 9003 w/ FC-2500 DC and Topsurv field software after a short demo. I love the instrument and DC, but after a few days with TopSurv I started discovering things that didn't stack up to the TDS I was used to. Most things were just irritating different ways of doing things that you'll always find when switching software.

Here's the short list of things that drove me nuts:

1) Translating or Rotating a 100 pt file took over a minute. Same DC with Carlson SurvCE does it in 10 sec. Large jobs you'll have time for lunch if you trans/rot in the DC.

2) Rotating the file during a set-up will result in all subsequent shots being off by the amount of the rotation (NO WARNING FROM THE SOFTWARE). A quick visit to the backsight screen will prevent this without having to actually take a new backsight.

3) Point coding and automatic line work works great on the DC, but much of the functionality is lost if you're not using Topcon's office software.

4) Critical data such as translates & rotates are not stored in the raw data file. This causes a couple of issues. Editing the raw file to change a rod height after performing any cogo function not stored in the raw file will cause your coordinates to revert to their pre cogo funtion values. Also makes it difficult to decipher any mistakes made by a crew when only part of what they've done is recorded in the raw data.

This is the kind of stuff you won't find in an afternoon. Take a demo unit on a real world job or see if you can work out a deal where you rent one for a week and really put it through it's paces.

We just got a Tesla with Magnet on it to test out and see how we like it with our robot (which has been using an FC-2500 with Topsurv 8 software). Unfortunately, we've had such problems with the Topsurv software that none of the field crews want to take out the Tesla and try it. We have a PLS who is going out to the field this week, who is going to try and play with it and see how it goes. I'll let you know his reaction.

FYI - I've been told that the Magnet software won't load onto an FC-2500 box (we'd have to upgrade to a FC-2600 or the Tesla). Even if it fixes the Topsurv problems, I'm not sure it is worth it due to the extra expense of also having to upgrade hardware. My recommendation to anyone contemplating moving to Topsurv is don't do it. I also recommend waiting on Magnet until there are some surveyor reviews out there.

I'll be curious to hear your results. I took a look at Magnet when they first started advertising it. From what I could tell from the PC demo and the manuals it appeared to be TopSurv with a new name ans some neat gee wiz features to automatically sync your DC to the office. If so, that's par for the course. Every time I downloaded a new version of TopSurv I'd find new features but no fixes for any of the issues I had reported to Topcon.

Magnet came free on-board the new Power Station we have, no one even wants to try it. We have TDS & Carlson data collectors... I refuse to learn yet another field surveying program.

+ Magnet for a DC is plain too expensive... the software cost like $2800 then its like $350-$400 a year for maintenance.

I had 3 data collectors with Topsurv . I dumped them all for Carlson . I had many problems with Topsurv and no fixes from Topcon . Waisted big bucks on Topsurv.