California Surveyors Forums

Has anybody had trouble with the FC-5000 blue tooth communicating with Quick Station and RC-4 besides me?
I keep getting blue screens, the thing freezes up, and I have to reboot the thing about 5 times per day.

Topcon's technical support people can't seem to figure out what is going on following my submitting a technical support query to them over a week ago.

Hi Clark-I'm curious to find out if this was resolved.
Thanks!
Jon

http://www.senanetworks.com/sd1000-01.html

This is what the vendor came up with. Abandon the radio communication and switch to long range bluetooth. I've tried it for one day it could be a viable solution, depending on your needs.

RC-4 is not playing well with Windows 10 for about the last 9 months

Abandon the radio communication and switch to long range bluetooth.

LRBT is still radio, but I get what you mean. I've been using Sena BT radios for robotic communication since 2011, first with the SD100 and now the SD1000. They have their quirks, but overall I've been very happy with their performance. With a 9dBi antenna on the DC I regularly get 1,200 feet or better with my GeoMax robot. When I was using a Leica TCRA1102plus I once got over 2,000 feet, but I was using a directional antenna at the gun and the response time was noticeably slow, presumably due to dropped packets.

Jim Frame wrote:LRBT is still radio, but I get what you mean. I've been using Sena BT radios for robotic communication since 2011, first with the SD100 and now the SD1000. They have their quirks, but overall I've been very happy with their performance. With a 9dBi antenna on the DC I regularly get 1,200 feet or better with my GeoMax robot. When I was using a Leica TCRA1102plus I once got over 2,000 feet, but I was using a directional antenna at the gun and the response time was noticeably slow, presumably due to dropped packets.

Yes I’ve seen you mention this online many times and it always intrigued me. I’m happy to be finally trying it out.

It’s the quirks that are getting to me. Topcon radios have too many quirks. This windows snafu is the last straw

I have had good results from the Leica 1100 radio system for 15 years at least and they keep on ticking (but they have their quirks). What made you change to BT?

Also there was a demo at the conference of Android OS smartphone/tablet GeoMax DC system. Has anyone tried this out long range? Dealer claims 1000 feet out of the box with a $300 tablet device. Sounds pretty good!

What made you change to BT?

I bought the Leica system used from a colleague for $1,000.00. It had been sitting on the shelf for several years due to a radio failure, and the Leica dealer's estimate to repair it was $2,200.00. I put the BT parts together for well under $500, though I did invest probably 10 hours fitting the Sena Parani radio into the Allegro CX data collector and getting it wired to draw power from the Allegro battery.

When I bought the GeoMax in 2015 (the Leica was still working, but it's own quirks had started showing up more frequently, so I retired it as a backup) I kept using the Allegro, but simply paired it to the BT handle on the GeoMax. The absence of cabling was a big advantage to the upgrade. And when the Allegro screen failed a couple years later, I bought a Carlson Surveyor+ and fitted it with the Parani from the Allegro, which I'm still using today.