So I just got an early Christmas present by the UPS guy today.?ÿ A Trimble robot, an S5 to be exact.?ÿ It's used and we have been renting one for about 3 months now so I've got the work flow down pretty good.
My question is, exactly how does the smart target work??ÿ There is a bunch of LED lights on it but I'm not sure I understand how that helps it keep locked on the target and helps it find the target when lost.?ÿ?ÿ
Edit, I guess its actually called a Multitrack target.
Hi David, it doesn??t help to keep locked. If I remember wel the LEDs are only there to identify the prism and to only take shots on the prism with the correct ID. We have been working with 3 ?ÿinstruments & prisms one the same site without problems, each one one his OWN radio Channel and prism ID.
keeping lock is not different from a regular passive prism. Passive means here no LEDs.
regards,
Christof.?ÿ
The LED's emit at a certain frequency, there are a bunch of them so that they cover 360 degrees. The TS has a tracker in it tuned to the frequency, and it can then turn the TS to follow the LED - this is active tracking, and it is not tracking the prism, it gets distance by EDM to the prism. In the old Trimble 5600's the TS tracker was a separate "scope" below the optical scope, but in the S series the tracker is in the optical scope. I think S series can also run passive tracking to a prism, and I think you can run both, i.e. set it to active tracking, then just before you take a shot it switches to passive so that you are sure it is aiming at the prism. Leica instruments have only passive (prism) tracking. I think the ID part of the active tracking is just switches to change LED frequency, that way you can have a couple of TS running in the same area, tracking individual targets.
Ok. Makes sense. Thanks for tha answers.?ÿ
If you have an oscilloscope on the target then the LED flashing frequency has a spike once every so many flashes - as I recall it was around one every 180. The instrument recognises this. Found this out many years ago when we tried to make a target for a special use.
Interesting Chris. This is for the S series? I got the bits to investigate myself once. But never got round to it.
Did you have any success?
With an MT1000 if you tell it to track that number it will ignore everything else. It will also improve your tracking range and speed up your searches.
Interesting Chris. This is for the S series? I got the bits to investigate myself once. But never got round to it.
Did you have any success?
Mt next door neighbour was a telecoms engineer and spent quite a lot of time on it, but in the end we decided it wasn't worth while, That was for a GDM4400 and then the next generation came out with the 36o prisms.
With the Trimble 5600's with active tracking one can get 1200' or double that with a RMT super target.?ÿ What's the range with passive tracking??ÿ Thanks.
I don't have numbers on the 5600, but the S7 specs say it can Autolock at 1640-2297 ft to passive prisms and 2625 ft to the MT-1000 in active track mode.
This video is really good at explaining everything. It's over an hour, but some really good information.
On the subject of LED's, my 9 year old friend yesterday showed me a pair of $2 paper spectacles that look like 3D glasses except the lenses are clear, and the deal is when you look at Christmas light LED's through them, you see ginger-bread-men. The LED's in the Trimble active prisms I think emit at human-invisible, but on the old 5600 RMT's there are couple of visible green ones that flash to verify that the gizmo is on.
Our target has red lights, but it looks to me so that's so you know its turned on.
I think if you are looking at the active prism LED's that red look may be infra-red 'glow', like what you see in security cameras at night, the LED's in the old 5600 RMT's have that glow. Also, I think there are warnings about prolonged (or any) looking at the?ÿactive prism LED's, so suggest caution.
