Firstly I'd like to thank Beat for;
- developing the DistoX and for the regular improvements to
PocketTopo,
- repairing our DistoX when it was faulty after our initial
assembly, and
- 'walking' me through and troubleshooting on numerous times I've
been confused or one of the devices was not working.
We just found 2.5km of 10-30m diameter passage, and would not have been able
to face surveying with a tape measure and paper (too slow and inaccurate).
It's big muddy light absorbing passage. Having launched into the project I
have a suggestion for PocketTopo development, (and distoX observations) that
the forum might like to comment on.
PocketTopo v1.35
It is a noticeable improvement on the previous versions, both on touch
screen and 'non-touch screen machines.
It most cases the popup menu allows you to select any survey leg and jump to
the corresponding 'data, 'map', 'outline' drawing or 'side view' drawing.
However, when you select a splay shot (un-numbered station) in either of the
drawing views, this feature is not available. If it were, it would be very
useful when trying to decipher the drawings and data table when the disto
operator has got ahead of the booker.
I understand the plan for Therion in future is to use splay shots identified
by '-' for passage wall definition and splay shots identified by '.' for
internal cave feature definition. It would be nice if PocketTopo
implemented something similar as well. It would be easier to make this
distinction as the survey was progressing in the cave, rather than making
the adjustments back in the office. In addition if the '.' shots were a
different colour to the survey legs with '-' shots it would ease the
sketching process (or maybe allow a toggle between showing '-' shots and '.'
shots).
Disto Distance
Our distoX occasionally gives one off spurious distance (and rarely compass)
readings. On our most recent trip it went one step further - a ~15m survey
leg gave '3 in a row' readings of 0.21m and some time later (after many
readings that looked OK) on a similar ~15m survey leg it gave '8 in a row'
52.0m readings with the odd 48m and 82m reading thrown in for good measure.
We chose another station and the anomaly disappeared. We are quite sure
that for the majority of these bogus readings the laser was squarely on the
target. This survey (but not these legs) included a 100m loop, which closed
at 1.25%. This is among the worst we've had with the distoX, but it does
not suggest any gross distance errors occurred within the loop.
Some 100 distance readings later the lithium AAA batteries died. (The
indicator suggested the batteries were full at the start, and the survey
included probably 300 shots).
Has any one else noticed similar issues?
Are the spurious readings likely to be battery level related? Or do they
suggest something more sinister?
Disto Display
A new distoX, recently acquired and upgraded by a colleague has developed
some permanently 'lit' pixels (about 20 of them) in the middle of where the
inclination is displayed - even when the device is powered off.
He is a 'distoX & paper' surveyor (and like me has aging eyes) so the
difficulty in reading the display is particularly frustrating.
Is there a solution to this?
- New display from Leica?
- New circuit board from Leica?
Happy caving
Bruce
