TotalStationSetup

Improving Field Crew Productivity 1

Robotic Total Station Setup

Introduction To collect information using a total station, the instrument must be

established over a point and a known orientation must be entered. In this exercise we will set up the total station over a point that we will create using arbitrary coordinates. We’ll use a church spire far off in the distance as our backsight target. We will give this arbitrary direction a false azimuth of 0°00’00”. Note: This guide was created with screens taken from Survey Controller version 12.01. Your screens may look differently if you have a different version.

Step Action Display

1

Set up your total station over a point. Power up the total station and TSC2. Then start Survey Controller: If you have had a robotic connection in the past, then the instrument and TSC2 will automatically attempt to reconnect the robotic connection. Notice the “Starting robotic connection” message. First we will open a job. Jobs are files that will contain the points and measurements we will use and make. If you have not created a job yet, see my quick guide titled, “TSC2/Survey Controller: Creating a Total Station Job”.

• Tap on the Files icon. This opens a pop up menu.

Continued on the following page


Robotic Total Station Setup, continued

Step Action Display

2

From within the pop up menu:

• Tap on Open job. This accesses the Select job screen.

3

Within the Select job screen:

• Select a job. Don’t be alarmed if your TSC2 does not contain the same jobs as the ones displayed on the right.

• Press the Select button.

This closes the Select job screen and returns you to the main menu.

4

In the main menu: Notice the selected job name is now displayed at the top of the screen. As soon as the robotic connection is made, the Electronic level screen is displayed. This step continues on the following page.




Step Action Display

4

In the Electronic level screen: Note: When Trimble Survey Controller connects to a Trimble 5600 instrument, the compensator is not reinitialized if it was initialized within the last two hours and if the instrument level has not changed by more than 30 seconds. Note: If accuracy is important, do not disable the compensator. If you do disable the compensator, horizontal and vertical angles in the instrument are not corrected for mis-levelment errors. The compensator will remain out of range until the Sighting and Trunion level axis are less than 5 minutes (0°05’00”). That being said, it is advisable to adjust these to be within 10 seconds (0°00’10”) of being perfectly level (0°00’00”) if accurate measurements are desired.

• Use the foot screws on the tribrack to get the level axis within 10 seconds.

• Press the Accept button

when finished. This takes you to the Corrections screen.


Note: After pressing the Accept button using a Trimble 5600 total station, you will then see a Compensating Instrument message on the TSC2 and you will see the total station spin while it adjusts itself. The Trimble S6 does not require itself to rotate during initialization.



Step Action Display

5

In the Corrections screen: This screen enables you to set the corrections associated with conventional observations. If you enter the current barometric pressure and temperature, Survey Controller will automatically calculate the PPM (part per million) distance measurement correction.

• Enter a barometric pressure in the Pressure field.

• Enter a temperature in the

Temperature field. Use the Curvature and refraction field to specify the index of refraction value. This is used to compute the curvature and refraction correction that is applied to vertical angle observations. The table to the right provides curvature and refraction options.

• Enter a curvature and refraction value in the Curvature and refraction field.

• Press the Accept button

when finished. This takes you to the Survey Controller Basic screen.


Option Description 0.142 For use during the day 0.2 For use at night

None No correction applied



Step Action Display

6

In the Survey Controller Basic screen: The Survey Controller Basic screen is a nice tool to view current values and perform simple distance or angular checks. Note: You cannot store measurements in this screen. In this example, we will skip using this screen.

• Tap on the Esc (escape) button.

This returns you to the main menu.

Instrument Set up

We have finished going through the initial robotic start up screens. We can now go into station set up.




Station Setup So far we have selected a total station job and we have successfully

obtained a robotic radio link between the data collector and the total station. We are now ready to begin the survey. First we must inform the data collector as to which point we are set up on and the direction of our backsight.

Step Action Display

7

From the Main menu:

• Tap on the Survey icon. This opens a pop up menu. From within this pop up menu,

• Tap on the survey style that has been set up for your instrument. In this example the style is called 5600.

Don’t be alarmed if your list of styles is different than the one on the right. This opens another pop-up menu.

8

From with the new pop-up menu:

• Tap on Station setup. This opens the Corrections screen.




Step Action Display

9

From within the Corrections screen: We see the same Corrections screen as we did in Step 5.

• Ensure that the values in these fields are correct for your particular environment and press the Accept button.

This takes us to the Station setup screen.

10

In the Station setup screen: This screen asks us for the instrument point name and height of the instrument above the point it is setup on. The problem is that the job that we selected in Step 3 contains no points and we must manually enter our starting points.

• Tap on the (right arrow button) beside the Instrument point name field.

This opens a pop-up menu. From within the menu:

• Tap on Key in. This takes us to the Point screen.




Step Action Display

11

From within the Point screen: In this example we will create a point called 100 with the arbitrary coordinates of 10,000 North, 5,000 East, and an elevation of 100 (all in metres). We will also call this a control point. Note: Control points cannot be overwritten by observing a point with the same point name as a control point.

• Enter a point name in the Point name field.

• Enter the remaining

information. The Code field is optional.

• Put a check mark in the

Control point box by tapping in the box.

• Press the Store button when

finished. This returns us to the Station setup screen.




Step Action Display

12

In the Station setup screen: We now see the coordinates of the information we just entered in the Instrument coordinates box. This gives us another opportunity to verify the coordinates before continuing.

• Measure the height of the instrument above the control point and enter that value in the Instrument height field.

• Press the Enter and Accept

button when done. This takes us to screen two of Station setup.




Step Action Display

13

In screen two of Station setup In this screen we can enter our backsight point. If we had one, I would select it, but we don’t so we will just use a direction. This was a common method in “the old days” when there wasn’t GPS or an abundance of control monuments.

• Enter a backsight name in the Backsight point name field. In this example I am calling the backsight 200.

• Enter the backsight azimuth

in the Azimuth field. In this example we are enteirng 0° 00’ 00”.

Since I am backsighting a far off arbitrary point as my backsight, I will select the measurement method as Angles only in the Method field. I would change this to Angles and Distances if I could measure a distance.

• Set the Method field to Angles only.

• Sight the backsight and press

the Measure button. This takes you to the third page of the setup screen.

Since in this example I am backsighting a far off point that has no coordinates associated with it, I am leaving the Backsight height field empty. If you are setting up your backsight on a known point, pick it from the list in the Backsight point name field and measure and enter the backsight height. If you are using a point with known coordinates, you would see the Azimuth field become populated with the computed azimuth between your set up point and backsight. In this example we are arbitraily calling our backsight direction due north (azimuth = 0° 00’ 00”).




Step Action Display

14

In the third page of the setup screen: In this screen we can see the setup information that we have entered so far. We see our instrument setup point and instrument height. There is also the backsight point and its height (there isn’t a height in this example) and the backsight azimuth. This is our last opportunity to verify the setup information before we store this setup.

• Verify that the information on this screen is correct.

• Press the Store button.

This returns you to the main menu and you are told that the station setup is completed.



Conclusion Congratulations you have setup your total station and you are now

ready to measure or stakeout points. Did you find this quick guide handy? Are there other guides you would like to see written? Did you find a mistake in this guide? Please let me know by using this email address: [email protected] Drop me a line. I would like to hear from you. November 2, 2007

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TotalStationSetup