TS16 vs TS13 vs S5 vs Geomax/Carlson zoom 90
My boss needs to purchase another robot for one of our crews and he’s indecisive and looking for some input from me. I’ve definitely done more research on the subject than he has but I’d like some opinions from guys who have used them.
We use Microsurvey CAD in the office and the crews currently used Microsurvey Fieldgenius on the total stations and Trimble access on the GPS. The total station being replaced was an old slow Sokkia SRX and the Bluetooth seems to have died after 10 years. It can probably still be used as a backup with my Parani’s if the Bluetooth is the issue. He uses it manually most of the time but probably 50%+ of his work is with GPS so he’s not using it as heavily as I do with the construction layout.
So our options that I see are as follows:
Trimble S5 and he transitions to using Trimble access for everything on the tsc7 he already has.
Leica TS16 or TS13 running Fieldgenius (not captivate). We already have enough Fieldgenius licenses. I’m curious how those 2 compare with each other and how they compare to the 11 year old TCRP1203+ that I’m using heavily every day. I haven’t used any other Leica robots or a Trimble robot but the old Leica seems to work really good compared to the old Sokkia SRX and even the newer Sokkia iX.
Geomax zoom 90/Carlson also running Fieldgenius. I’ve been dealing with Microsurvey trying to fix a bunch of glitches in their software used on my windows 10 tablet and I asked them about which brands work better with their software (the Sokkia ix was a complete fail for robotic work with Fieldgenius – had to switch to Magnet Field) and they said that Leica is more friendly towards their software than Geomax. I’m not sure why that is since they’re all owned by the same company but that may be a reason to pay more for Leica. Especially since we typically run these things 7-10 years.
I noticed the ts13 looks a lot more similar to my 1200 series than the ts16. I’m also not sure what improvements there are to ATR PLUS vs the old ATR. They say ATR plus is faster to regain lock when line of sight is regained but my experience with the 1200 is that it’s basically instant. If a vehicle blocks my line of sight and I stop and don’t move right before…as soon as the vehicle is gone it’s locked immediately. I don’t think there is any improvement to be had there.
Occasionally it misses me when searching or fails to shoot, especially when Sun is bright and low in the sky. I’m curious if that is improved in the newer ones. Also if I climb up onto a foundation to tie it in and then try to get lock it sometimes can’t find my because of the vertical difference. Other than those downfalls it’s pretty well a perfect robot.
So what do you guys think? Team yellow or team Green?
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