Hi, I'm Rami Tamimi. This right here is the
surveying total station. It is the signature device that is used in surveying in the 21st
century. Today I'm going to show you how you can set up your survey total station so that
you can begin doing your surveying projects. Now my total station is a lot
different than a differential level, which is what we've been using in the past.
This piece of equipment requires electronics and a battery to operate. Additionally it's
going to require some advanced leveling to make sure that everything is calibrated
correctly to the surface of the Earth, and any small adjustments that you might
make could affect the leveling of this instrument. Now I'm going to be demonstrating
how to set up a total station using a Sokkia SX series. It really doesn't matter what you use
the procedure is the same so follow along and look at all the small details that I do in order
to set up my total station. Your total station, no matter what brand it is, will be the exact
same procedure. Okay let's get our equipment. Once our tripod is over the point,
we're going to go ahead and pull out the total station and place
it right on top of the tripod. Once the total station is on top of the tripod, go ahead and tighten it below, so that
it's nice and secure on the tripod. Now it's important that your instrument is set up
right over this point, and when I say right over I mean quite literally right over that point.
Here's how you do it. Every total station has one of these on the side of it. This site right
here on the side allows us to look down on the bottom and see where the instrument is directly
over. When we look now we can see that well it's not quite over our point, so we're going to need
to move it over just a bit. The way I recommend that you do this take two of the legs in both of
your hands look into the sight, lift the tripod and keep one leg on the ground. That's a
loud motorcycle. Once doing so bring the instrument backward and forward until
you find the point. Once you find it, set it down gently you don't have to be perfect
but come close to the center of the point. Once you've found the point through your
viewfinder go ahead and step on the legs and embed the tripod into the ground. Now I
know it's hard to see on this particular brand, but you'll find that there is a bubble right here
and that will help you level out the instrument to a closer precision. Some brands actually put the
bubble in a visible place so if you're lucky and you have the bubble somewhere visible, go ahead
and look at it and try to figure out what you need to do with the legs to adjust the total station.
And being more level I can tell by looking at this bubble that our total station is leaning forward
just a bit too much, so I'm going to lift this leg up just a little bit so it's a little bit more
level. What I'm going to do here is I'm going to step on the leg so that it doesn't go anywhere.
I'm going to loosen the leg and I'm going to raise the instrument just a bit so that it's more
level. Once I'm satisfied I'll tighten up the leg, when I look at this bubble now it looks to be
a bit more in the center. So now we have a much better foundation to start before we turn on the
instrument. All right, we've now leveled the total station to a point where it's relatively flat with
the tripod. It's also relatively close to being right over the point of occupation. Now we turn
it on just going to go and press the power button. The first thing that pops up is this digital level
screen. As you can see, we still have a lot of leveling to do. Leveling out a total station
is extremely critical, it's the difference between making sure your data is accurate and
your data being completely thrown off because your occupation is off. If your initial setup is
incorrect, then everything that you are going to collect isn't going to be relatively positioned
correctly based off the physical location of the point. What we're really doing is calibrating the
equipment to fit into the real world. All right, let's finish up this leveling process.
Now similar to a differential level, there are three knobs on the bottom to help level
out the instrument. When doing two knobs together, you'll make the instrument move left and right,
one knob by itself will move the instrument up and down with the assistance of the digital level
screen I'm able to see which direction my bubble is going. The slightest adjustments to these
knobs can actually influence the bubble quite drastically. I'm doing some final adjustments
here just to make sure that this is coming into the correct position. Now all that's left
is to bring the bubble down just a bit, bring this bubble into the right -- See when I do that, it goes back, so I have
to go back and forth, and the -- the slightest adjustments make the biggest difference
when it comes to leveling a total station keep that in mind. We're getting very close here, some final adjustments. All right, I'm going to
go ahead and call that good. Your margin of error should be below 10 seconds. If you're between
1 and 10 seconds that's relatively acceptable. All right, the next thing we need to do is look
through our viewfinder to see the point below us. The goal now is to make sure that we are exactly
over our point of interest, and then I take a look here. We're slightly just below where we need to
be -- we're close, but we're just below where we need to be. We want to be right in the center of
that dot and that circle. All right, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to loosen up this little
screw, but not all the way. All right, now I have the ability to slightly move the instrument.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to look through the viewfinder and position myself just
over the point. I'm going to move up just a bit there. Now I'm right over the point. All right,
now I'm going to go ahead and lock this back up and when we look at the screen you'll notice
something that's right we're not completely leveled like we were before, which means we have
to readjust again. So I'm gonna move this over just a bit. Remember the slightest adjustment will
make the biggest difference. Then we're gonna go up and over – okay, there looks good. One more
look under make sure we're still over the point right, so there you have it that is how you
level a total station. It's a little bit more complicated than a regular level. It's definitely
way more sensitive, however, the level of accuracy that you can achieve with a survey total station
is unbelievable. If you liked this video and you found it informative, be sure to give it a
big like. If you're looking for more content on total stations and what the total station can
be used for, go ahead and subscribe to my youtube channel. I plan on uploading new videos about
resectioning, traversing, topographic surveying, stakeouts and much, much more using our total
station. And with that, I will see you guys next time.
