Was looking into these Topcon instruments and they look great on paper but I'm wondering if anyone on here has had any practical experience with them as they are fairly new. As always any feedback would be appreciated, thanks!
A buddy of mine has one and he loves it.
I just bought one. I already have a Leica 1203 of my own, but I bought the QS for an agency I do consulting for. They want to do some of their own engineering type work and I assisted them in selecting the best bang for their buck.
I took it out the last 3 days on a road construction project.
Things I like about it:
Very fast in taking measurements. When you hit the measure button, it is an instaneous measurement and you are ready to move on.
Very user friendly. Very little learning curve. This was a package deal using the TopSurv program on their FC 2500 collector. I did a topo one day, did my design work the next day and then went out to stake the road. It took very little instruction to learn to do this as the program was all very intuitive..
Stake out was extremely fast. As the QS is continuously measuring, the position of the prism/rod is continually displayed, providing for very fast positioning to the target point. Once on point, the cut/fill is immediately displayed.
What I don't like about it:
The software is almost too simple, that's probably just me as I am pretty experienced with the Leica system and its complexity comes with great abilities. I do have to say that the simplicity of the TopSurv software allowed me to get others trained very quickly.
The QS eats batterys. 2-3 hours per battery. Need 3 batteries minimum for days work, and likely more if working more than a standard 8 hours in the field doing large topo or stakeout. Part of the low-battery life is that the machine is continuously shooting distances as it tracks the prism, whether in topo or stakeout mode. This, plus it is constantly adjusting to each minute movement of the prism, contrary to my Leica which uses math to calcuate the minute movement instead of expending energy through the servo motors.
Obtaining lock is pretty quick when near the same level as the QS, however, if the rodperson is at a significantly lower or higher elevation than the QS, we had quite a bit of problem getting re-locked. Once locked on, the machine has no problem staying locked when at a different elevation, but if you lose lock, we found it is hard to re-lock when down a hillside and not in the same general elevation as the instrument. The QS does have a joystick control, but we found it somewhat useless as it moved too quick to control with any accuracy.
In the end, I like the QS. I like my Leica more, but the QS is a lot less expensive and provides the ability to quckly get technician level employees productive on it.
I kind of wish the QS was available when I bought my Leica simply because I only use my robot a couple of days a month and the price savings would have been nice. However, the Leica is by far a superior instrument in most all regards. For a highly experienced user who will be using a robot on a regular basis, I would go for the Leica (or Trimble as I understand it is of similar quality). But for intermittant use the Topcon QS is probably the best bang for the buck.
Thanks guys, i appreciate the feedback!
I forgot to add, the manuals are horrible. Seems to be true with a lot of survey equipment/software providers these days, but the Topcon/Topsurv manuals are about the worst I've used to try and learn anything.
We moved from the 8000 series to the QS and have been very happy. We keep 3 instrument batteries and 2 RC-4 batteries in the case for a days work and have never needed more. Like above we average around 3 hrs per batt on the gun and generally 2 days on the RC-4 batteries with that varying primarily on obstruction. Tracking speed and maintaining lock have been above expectations. We've q-locked at 2500' for fun and it was surprisingly fast. I'm using it with Survey Pro and it works good but you have to q-lock from the rc-4 manually which I could do without. I have ordered new Carlson Surveyor+ DC's which supposedly integrate the QS much better. The price on the QS was so reasonable back in December I thought it was a typo. The only real downside to me was for the cost of the rc-4 unit I expected an aluminum or magnesium housing; not plastic.
My apologies for spelling/grammar. Typing on a phone with my sleeping 3yo in the other arm!
> I have ordered new Carlson Surveyor+ DC's which supposedly integrate the QS much better.
Will the TopCon QS work with a Carlson Surveyor+? I assumed the data collector needed a built-in radio.
If it will work, that would be a major selling point. I have an SRX around solely because it will work with the Surveyor+ (via long range bluetooth). Our other Robots are S6's, which are damn near perfect...(aside from no "quick find" reacquisition device, and poor Trimble Access software).
>
> Will the TopCon QS work with a Carlson Surveyor+? .
I have a buddy using a QS with a Carlson DC. Call them, but I am 100% sure it works.
