Patrick Garner
Active Member
Sean, why not the LS for a flood cert?
Topcon and Javad
- Thread starter Patrick Garner
- Start date
Darren Clemons
Well-Known Member
Patrick, I'm guessing the instrument was just to get the FFE inside the building.....
Sean Joyce
Well-Known Member
Yes looking in a basement. I did throw my T2 on a point with a previous elevation on it just for kicks to see how that works out.
Patrick Garner
Active Member
Of course. Moving along--!
Darren Clemons
Well-Known Member
Another possibility, to completely eliminate the total station, is you can just get an elevation as close as you can with the LS on a hard surfaced object, then just use a level and a grade rod to get the FFE.
Patrick Garner
Active Member
Yup, and I'd wager that a level would be more accurate if the FFE is an issue. Seems that the ones I most frequently get are when FEMA revises a map and a homeowner is suddenly in a flood zone. Regardless, a couple minute procedure w/ either instrument.
Darren Clemons
Well-Known Member
Yes, FEMA revised all the counties in my area back in 2008....been a ton of these things since....
Isn't it great, like you said in another thread a few weeks back, how things seem to "morph" into something completely different on these boards....
Isn't it great, like you said in another thread a few weeks back, how things seem to "morph" into something completely different on these boards....
Patrick Garner
Active Member
Matt, coming back to your pricing post, I spent some time Friday afternoon researching typical competitive units from Topcon, Trimble and Leica. In the course of that I came across pricing that's, in some cases, a third to half of what you listed. Of course it's difficult to do any pricing with precision because, like Javad, everyone offers options. So for the most part when I recorded prices, I did so for top end examples (GNSS etc).
For instance, I found prices for Topcons at,
Topcon GR-5 Base and Rover: $20,000-26,000.
Topcon FC-500 Data Collector: $1500-1600
Topcon Magnet Fields Roads and GPS Software for Data Collector: $1500+/-
Total: $23,000-29,000
Trimble prices varied less at,
Trimble R10 Base and Rover with TSC3 and Trimble Access: $23,000-28,000
(All of these come with Trimble's data collector)
Leica bases and rovers were far more difficult to price--far too many possibilities & models. But base/rover combos seemed to start at about $32,000. Leica is clearly the Rolex in the pricing world.
[I can pass along names of dealers for these quotes if you're curious.]
So my tentative conclusion is that Topcons are pretty heavily discounted--and there are many "Email for quotes" websites, which I presume might yield even lower prices--plus, my experience is that discounters will usually negotiate even lower when pushed.
Trimble pricing appears to be more heavily controlled, while Leica pricing rarely varies more than a few percentages among dealers. No surprise.
But based on this research, the construction guy who contacted me wasn't far off when he said Javad's pricing for an LS with radio and modem was about the same or higher than what his dealer would sell a Topcon for.
Of course, the LS is superior in its technology. That might not be a significant factor in open sky surveying, but under cover the LS is unbeatable. As an aside I was also amused that almost every GNSS maker describes their own models as "superior to any other rover," "unparalleled," "world class," "found to beat every other maker in a head to head test," and on and on... The claims are impossible to verify, and outrageously impossible when stacked up against each other.
Ah, for a Consumer's Report for surveyors, an objective institute that tests and compares all receivers. That we'll never see!
party chief3
New Member
I just spent 7 years as " in house surveyor " with a local site contractor.
Construction layout is still a robotic game. Gps would be better but real world is a RTS on a 8.5' tripod resecting off the " real surveyors points " and it better also be prismless because as-builting calls for some very difficult shots.
Gps is great for the machine and I never rough staked a pond after I taught the dozer operator how to set up on "his base" but when you are driving lath for grade you WANT the quick verticals of a robot.
edit
Well that does not really answer the question. What I meant was the flexability aspect of field controller is critical for the forseeable future.
Construction layout is still a robotic game. Gps would be better but real world is a RTS on a 8.5' tripod resecting off the " real surveyors points " and it better also be prismless because as-builting calls for some very difficult shots.
Gps is great for the machine and I never rough staked a pond after I taught the dozer operator how to set up on "his base" but when you are driving lath for grade you WANT the quick verticals of a robot.
edit
Well that does not really answer the question. What I meant was the flexability aspect of field controller is critical for the forseeable future.
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Patrick Garner
Active Member
pc3, perhaps it depends on the size of the construction project. In my area--New England--staking for even large scale projects is off gps, predominately Topcon stuff. And by large scale I mean projects of 100 acres or less. It's still rare to see machine control, and robotic is around but becoming less so.
Darren Clemons
Well-Known Member
I had a surveyor locally who just purchased a complete new, top of the line Topcon HR system and he told me it was 47 grand total.....
Patrick Garner
Active Member
Yup, and if you embrace the high end of Leica's offerings, you can easily be in that territory.
Topcon? They must demand dealers not advertise their HiPer cost--I've never been able to find prices online. But it sounds like if you choose to go Topcon HR (vs Javad LS), you get half the channels at twice the cost. Hm.
Topcon? They must demand dealers not advertise their HiPer cost--I've never been able to find prices online. But it sounds like if you choose to go Topcon HR (vs Javad LS), you get half the channels at twice the cost. Hm.
Darren Clemons
Well-Known Member
Yep....we could go on and on.....but we probably should stay civilized....
No, I'll never put down Topcon, we were loyal and true for 20 years.....had probably 8 or 9 systems total in that time....then we found Javad! No more yellow....
To be honest the guy Darren is speaking of just bought a Javad system today . Oh by the way his Topcon system is only 4 months old.