Hi Everyone, I'm new to the forum and have a few questions for you. We do commercial, industrial & residential site work and I'm trying to get some knowledge about gps and dual grade lasers ( have never used either). We recently have done a couple of big fine grading jobs and was wondering which would have been a bigger asset to have in those situations. Most of the time we are on the smaller site projects but in this case we were fine grading 4 acres for blacktop trying to match 2 grades with single slope and some compound grades with no plans. I would like to eliminate the hassle of hiring a surveyor and grading to stakes. With gps do you always need a set of plans downloaded to the system or can u take a 3D machine to the site touch one point then touch another and it figures out the middle or would a dual slope laser be better in that situation?
This is totally going to be determined by the size and how complex the site is. On a residential lot, you can probably get by with a dual slope laser and a LR50/60 receiver on the machine (Indicate only- No automatics) On a bigger site, a more complex design, GPS would probably better suit that situation. You would need a base station, a rover, and a machine system (3D Automatics). You would need a model built for the machine and data collector. You would need a surveyor to set control points ( We recommend at least 5) with known X,Y,and Z coordinates to calibrate the site. You export this calibration as a .cfg file for the machine. I know all this sounds complicated but your local Sitech dealer can help you with this in many different ways.
Not to hijack the thread from the OP, but I was wondering if having a second LR50 on my dozer blade would be worth it for an upcoming project which involves preparing a 1 acre site for concrete paving? I have had my system for about a year now, and I can grade a pad to level fairly well with the one receiver mounted near the center of the blade. In fact we just did a pad 600 ft long x 50 ft wide and it worked fine. The proposed project calls for a crown in the middle of the lot, perpendicular to the street, with a slope from the back line to the street. Then they want a swale for each of the two driveways into the lot, so that the profile of the lot when viewed from the street will be like a long, low "W"' if you can visualize that. The whole thing needs to fall toward the street. I'm thinking that having a receiver on each end of the blade might help me. (No auto-control, just lights only). What do you experienced guys think? Would another $1800 receiver save time and concrete on this project?
I have done several pads 400x400 with 1 catch basin at the end of the pad with a dozer with a single antenna and could get it within 5mm. The best way we have found to save asphalt/concrete was to bring the grader in and take out the roughness the dozer leaves behind.