What kind of equipment do you use for work?

[DaTT]

Here is my new stuff:

Robotic Total Station -- $25k (add another $5k for the receiver and 360 degree prism kit, not pictured)

Allegro MX data Collector -- $6.5k

Sokkia GSR 2700 GPS -- $20k (when purchased, a little dated now though)

 

[lxskllr]

I never liked Sokkia instruments. The optics were terrible. I don't know what I'd like anymore. I loved the Geodimeter. They had Leica glass, and were made in Sweden, but after the company got sold, they were made more cheaply. The body wasn't as robust, and they Used Nikon lenses. You could see(or not as the case may be) the quality difference. They also got rid of the stadia hairs which pissed me off. It isn't something you need much, but it's a cheap addon, and comes in handy for distance estimation.

 

[DaTT]

I never liked Sokkia instruments. The optics were terrible. I don't know what I'd like anymore. I loved the Geodimeter. They had Leica glass, and were made in Sweden, but after the company got sold, they were made more cheaply. The body wasn't as robust, and they Used Nikon lenses. You could see(or not as the case may be) the quality difference. They also got rid of the stadia hairs which pissed me off. It isn't something you need much, but it's a cheap addon, and comes in handy for distance estimation.

Optics are for the birds....what with robotics now . Have you ever used Robotics? I just started 2 weeks ago and absolutely love it. Keep it on constant tracking and it's just as fast as GPS without the worry of overhead tree coverage.

 

[lxskllr]

Optics are for the birds....what with robotics now . Have you ever used Robotics? I just started 2 weeks ago and absolutely love it. Keep it on constant tracking and it's just as fast as GPS without the worry of overhead tree coverage.

I was the first in MD to use robotics in the early 90s. It has it's uses, but was a PITA for the type of work I did. It more than doubled the workload, and you couldn't trust it for stuff that needed to be accurate. Not without constantly checking the setup over difficult/impossible terrain anyway.

 

[phucheneh]

Mix of Snap-on/Cornwell/Matco hand tools, various shittier hand tools of too many brands to name, IR pneumatic impacts, Makita cordless impacts/drills/screwdrivers...my laptop, pocket scan tools, an OTC Genisys...that's the main stuff that comes to mind.

 

[Jeeebus]

a computer and sometimes a pen, but I suppose that's not cool enough for me to e-brag and create a thread about.

 

[DaTT]

I was the first in MD to use robotics in the early 90s. It has it's uses, but was a PITA for the type of work I did. It more than doubled the workload, and you couldn't trust it for stuff that needed to be accurate. Not without constantly checking the setup over difficult/impossible terrain anyway.

What type of surveying did you do....me thinks Robotics has come a loooong way since then. So far the only real problem I have had is heat shimmers off of the road surface when shooting control 300M away.

 

[phucheneh]

a computer and sometimes a pen, but I suppose that's not cool enough for me to e-brag and create a thread about.

Dude I totally use pens, too!

What kind do you use?!?!

I use whatever clicky kind with a pocket clip that I can steal from people.

 

[Jeeebus]

Dude I totally use pens, too!

What kind do you use?!?!

I use whatever clicky kind with a pocket clip that I can steal from people.

Lot of people at the office use fancy ones, but I'm a traditionalist. Blue bic pens for me, baby. Cheaper the better.

 

[highland145]

My wit, charm and personality. Why else would anyone pay me 35%? Awesome sauce helps.

I like cheap Bic pens too since my customers walk off with them.

 

[Gillbot]

Anything from this:

to this:

to this:

to this:

to this:

HI!

 

[lxskllr]

What type of surveying did you do....me thinks Robotics has come a loooong way since then. So far the only real problem I have had is heat shimmers off of the road surface when shooting control 300M away.

Construction. Heat shimmer's one problem. You also have vibration, settling, and people putting equipment in the way, and out of earshot, so they don't hear you yelling at them. After carefully doing arduous work to 1.5mm, you get down off the pier in the center of the interstate, drive 1.5 miles of road to get where the gun is, and hope everything's still right with the setup. I also dealt with unusual angles, where I might be more than 12' in hole, and the gun pointing almost straight down. Or reversed, and the gun pointed almost straight up. They don't track well at extreme angles, and you can't always tell what the gun's looking at. I did plenty of work looking through a 1cm hole in a rebar forest.

Construction's also hard on equipment. I don't trust extended prism poles for anything good. I did most of my work with a peanut prism on my plumb bob. The prism pole was for rough stuff, or grading stakes, topo, or whatever.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I work tech support, so... Laptop, brain, master keys for building.

It's pretty minimalistic, all told.

 

[DaTT]

Lot of people at the office use fancy ones, but I'm a traditionalist. Blue bic pens for me, baby. Cheaper the better.

I use pencils, mechanical pencils

 

[DaTT]

Construction. Heat shimmer's one problem. You also have vibration, settling, and people putting equipment in the way, and out of earshot, so they don't hear you yelling at them. After carefully doing arduous work to 1.5mm, you get down off the pier in the center of the interstate, drive 1.5 miles of road to get where the gun is, and hope everything's still right with the setup. I also dealt with unusual angles, where I might be more than 12' in hole, and the gun pointing almost straight down. Or reversed, and the gun pointed almost straight up. They don't track well at extreme angles, and you can't always tell what the gun's looking at. I did plenty of work looking through a 1cm hole in a rebar forest.

Construction's also hard on equipment. I don't trust extended prism poles for anything good. I did most of my work with a peanut prism on my plumb bob. The prism pole was for rough stuff, or grading stakes, topo, or whatever.

I don't do much, if any, construction work. The newer robots (at least Sokkia anyways) will only sight the dead center of the prism, and the data collector tells you if the robot is fixed on you or if it has lost you.

 

[DaTT]

Snip

Can't figure out what you do....

 

[bbhaag]

Here are a few items I use that are more tech oriented. Horticulture has always been pretty simple but its nice to see technology make its way into the field.

 

[l0cke]

Here is my lab equipment at school

 

[Gillbot]

Can't figure out what you do....

Neither can I. ():biggrin:

 

[ultimatebob]

The weirdest thing I had to use at work was a $10,000 quad vat Henny Penny Evolution fryer. I needed to make it talk to our software.

Made good French fries, though.

 

[edro]

 

[iGas]

I will have to kill you literally if I show you.

 

[I Saw OJ]

Drove one of these this morning.

 

[LevelSea]

a few tektronix scopes, data recorder, bunch of current and differential probles, power supplies, function generators, electric motors, torque transducers, rotary shaft encoders, etc. got a bunch of homemade stuff too.

just got some more synchronous serial usb adapters, and should have some more jtags and another scope in a week or so.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Something like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Compaq-D...1279508187?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item33854956db

With 4 screens.

We monitor stuff. DC power, environmental, DMS1U all the way to DMS200 phone switches, AFCs, fibre optic transport systems such as Alcatel and Nortel OME6500 series , CDMA etc..... I could go on. I'd say there's around 1,000 COs/Cell sites we monitor.

Heck, even misc stuff like fuel levels in generators.

Fairly laid back but it can get pretty hecktic when there's storms.

The building I work in is pretty awesome though, it's the regional central office, lots of telecommunication equipment, and everything feeds out of here. This building sucks up about 1,500 amps on the DC power side. At 48 volts that's about 80 thousand watts. Needless to say, there's no heat in this building, only AC. Lots of AC. Well there actually are some baseboard heaters but I doubt they ever are used, it's probably code to have some sort of heat so they're there, they work, but they never turn on, even in winter.