Mounting Pole on Utility Vehicle

Adam

Well-Known Member
5PLS
I was chatting with Wes Cole yesterday and he mentioned he was going to order one of them very expensive Seco mounts, I think those are around $400 - $500 bucks. I had come up with a cheap way to mount the poles to my gator a while back and shared these pics with him. I wanted to post them on the forum in case anyone else is interested. You probably have the stuff to do it laying around your office. I have two mounts on my gator one on driver side and one on passenger side. I had about $5 in the U bolts. I drilled a hole in the bottom plate for the tip of the rod then simply clamp the pole into the pole bracket and wrap a bungee around it just in case.
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Wes Cole

Active Member
Yep Adam you saved me a great deal of money! This is what's great about the camaraderie among surveyors.

My Polaris Ranger doesn't have that nifty plate at the fender like yours does but the Ranger has a slot for the door netting to fasten in to it and the rod fits in there. I did order a couple of parts from etrailer.com after doing some cipher'n yesterday evening. Think i spent $35. Once they come in and I mount rods on both sides I'll post some pics back to this thread.

Great post Adam.
 

toivo1037

Active Member
Here is a quick pic of a bracket I fabed from a couple chunks of old bed-rail angle iron. Hooks to the Bomb Outlander 400HO with 3 clamps, and comes off in about 5 minutes.
 

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Adam

Well-Known Member
5PLS
Toivo, I bet you come from a farming or ranching background. I like it.
 

toivo1037

Active Member
Nope,
UP of Michigan. You make due with what you have. I'm not spending $400+ on something that I deem inferior. Make something that suits exactly what you want it to do, and it will save you time and $$ in the long run. I enjoy fixing things like that up, just don't have a bunch of time to do it. Takes a little figuring, and minor welding skills, but worked out great.

Made that holder for the original Hiper, using my old rod, the head was exactly 2m high, and there was a stub pipe to clamp the DC at the limits of the cable but so you could see it while driving. Never did use it for auto-topo like I thought but it sure is quick and handy when running around with the rover, or even a prism pole. I put a orange strobe on the very top, and used it to run around town on side streets and sidewalks when doing a storm sewer RTK survey. Would have taken more double the time with a regular vehicle. ATVs aren't just for the farm and woods, I sometimes use them in the small towns and stuff to avoid messing up traffic.
 

Wes Cole

Active Member
Here's a few pics of what I came up with, inspired by Adam's setup. I'm mounting two rods, one on each side of a Polaris Ranger 500. I will be using Adam's suggestion of my LS on one side (T1M base) and my old GPS unit, a Spectra Precision Epoch 50 on the NC RTN on the other side. I'll have 2 pairs of points, about 4 feet apart for checks.

I purchased two items from etrailer.com to secure the rods to the roll cage:

Roll Bar Mounts http://www.etrailer.com/p-QF90050.html
Quick Fist Mini Clamps http://www.etrailer.com/p-QF30050.html

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Roll Bar Mount with the Quick Fist Mini Clamp

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The Ranger has a bar that anchors the net door to the floor, just happens the rods fit perfectly in the floor anchor and leaves plenty of room to get in and out of the cab.

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Quick Fist Mini Clamp w/ monopod

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Fastened

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Monopod & SECO collapsible 2M rod

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Last one....

Didn't have my units with me today but it seems extremely secure. We rode around the property for a good bit (long enough to put the baby to sleep!) and no rattle or noise, everything seems very tight.

Total cost was $39.52. Much better than the $400 I was about to drop on the SECO setup!! Thankfully Adam talked some sense into me!
 
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