Has anyone had any experience with the laser-augmented GCS900 system? I am mainly interested in what the reliability and practicality is of using the system. There are no laser augmented systems here that I can go and look at that I know of. I have an application that requires laser quality tollerance grading on 3-D sand profiles and I know GNSS will not be good enough and before anyone asks the question, yes, I do use GNSS already and know how good it really is. ATS is not an option as there will be a number of machines on any given site using 3-D files so laser is the only control option. I'm sure the accuracy will be there but if anyone has any feedback on how it all goes together, it would also be appreciated.
i havent used it myself but now that several graders in denmark use it and the word is that it is almost as accurate as with ats and it is a lot cheaper but just so you know it the ats uses the excact same 3 d files as the gps you only need to have three fixpoints for the station
I know there are a few GCS900 w/ laser augmentation in Australia but I don't know where they are now. Southern Gateway Alliance had both dozers and graders set up this way on the new Perth-Bunbury highway in WA. The Trimble dealer for that was Haefeli-Lysnar. I strongly suggest you ask your dealer for references and contact those to ask about their experiences. Laser augmentation works, but one should be aware of proper operating procedures and know the system's limitation. If you are a member of Civil Contractors Federation you can check with their members for success and/or fail stories.
Keep in mind that when using Trimble's or Cat's laser augmentation, the elevation of all machines running off of the rotating laser must be within 1m of each other since this is the length of the GCS900/AccuGrade laser augmentation receiver. If all machines can agree on an elevation for the laser that will serve everyone, then you'll be fine. If not, you may perhaps have to use an ATS for one or several machines or consider using Topcon's Millimeter GPS system which is also a laser augmentation system but uses a fanned-beam laser so it works within a 10m elevation window compared to the 1m window using GCS900.
i have the GCS900 UTS system using the robot, doing road construction, on a 140m. makes the grader really be the brain of the whold site, all levels and lines all there, we only work 300m at one time, set the robot up in the middle. i have brought up with our rep about having another machine in the area with same system and he sais you really wana switch to gps. . still use GCS900 but instead of a total station and prism its base station and rover. . the all machines can use the same base station, dont know if this is what your after.
This is the system that is supposed to compete with the topcon milimeter right???