Trimble S5/S7

I would rather have guide lights than the fuzzy video.

On our S7, I rarely use the Trimble Vision camera and have never used the Scanning feature. (I've rented Farro scanners when needed instead.) So for me, I could use the $4000 elsewhere.

You could certainly argue that using those features just a few times would be worth the extra cost. But those extras are not in my typical workflow.

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https://www.trimble.com/Monitoring-Solutions/Trimble-S7.aspx

Go S5 with the track light. We have a few S6 with vision and everyone here prefers the track light.

I was radial staking out a property line yesterday in thick bamboo and the track light was a blessing.?ÿ

I haven't kept up with what features are on what models, does the S5 have active tracking? If the only difference between them is the camera vs. the track lights I'd go S5. The S6 had a feature that I think they called Sure Point, where if the instruments level changed slightly it would compensate the angles - this was a great feature and was a big part of what differentiated the S6 from the S3 when those were current models.

The MT1000 was critical to the performance, IMHO, especially in the woods.

From my experience I prefer the camera in open areas. It is easy to tap on the screen to lock on to me. In a wooded area the tracklight is better. My old company we had both and I preferred the S7 for the majority of the work we did. And also liked the Active Prism better too.

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-G

The video is really hard to use in the forest and brushy areas.

And mine has a bug, I keep seeing my Dad (dead these 12 years, may his soul rest in peace) in the video, like what the heck, man?

I understand that these things have a "GPS search" function to help with finding lock. How well does that work?

Yes the S5 has an active prism.?ÿ We just bought a S5 and the salesman didn't really think we would miss having the S7.

Getting the active prism is a gimme, IMO. If I didn't want that I might not be looking at Trimble at all. 

It works fairly well. Occasionally the GPS/compass needs to be re-calibrated on the controller on the fly. It's easy to do. It turns to the general area. I liked it, other co-workers didn't.

I ran an S6 and S7 with the multitrac for the last few years along with a few different variants with different options. The S6 did rather well, but was not so hot with finding you in the thick stuff which meant the track light was a must. The S7 with multitrac and track light was damn near better than a good I-man at finding you in some terrible conditions out to about 600ish feet...as long as it was pointing in the right direction when you hit search.

I used 2 other rentals that were equipped either with video or gps and no track light....video was garbage and the lag was so bad that you would turn past yourself 3 times before you figured out what you were looking at. The GPS tracking worked very well, even in the thick NE Kansas brush and bramble I was working in but you still had to do some playing with it to fine tune if you were having trouble locking.

My opinion: Forget about the video, GPS is OK but not worth the additional cost. Get a bare bones S Series and spend the $3k on the multitrac prism. I had several utility and mechanical different contractors using them on a construction site and being able to set your channels meant you never had workflow interrupted by another operator interfering or locked on to another prism unless you wanted to. Hands down, the Trimble machines are the most consistent robotics I have worked with and carry elevation much better. I will warn you that the multitrac needs a very clear line to the center of the pole. I found out while doing anchor bolt verification that a piece of rebar can cause it to shoot one of the other prisms on the ring so that is something to think about.?ÿ

Now to have a final solution to the data collector availability.....last I checked, they were still fine tuning the new tablet thing and the TSC 3's were on their way out of support.

Apparently Microsoft is terminating support for Windows Mobile this year. That spells the beginning of the end for the the TSC3. So I wouldn't be buying a new one of those at this time. The TSC7 seems to be the designated replacement. 

It seems that the camera on the S7 can also be used to just record geotagged snaps of the view, which then can be just used for reference or can be combined with others (stereo pairs) to produce photogrammetric mapping of detailed areas. Anybody using that feature?

The photogrammetry bailed me out a couple of times when the SX10 didn't have scan data on something I needed to pick up, but you need to see the object in question from multiple setups with good geometry. I used to use a V10 for things like electrical substations and it was a great tool, but the data processing is very time consuming. I've used the imagery from the instrument to enhance my deliverables on several occasions; as the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words.