I’m working on setting up a new survey department at an engineering firm. It’s small, about 50 people. They want me to hold startup costs to a minimum. I’m a long-time 12i user. Just from the specs, I don’t see a disadvantage to using the RS3 instead. Can someone offer some reassurance that I’ll be able to make good use of the Emlid solution in RTK, and Static applications. The phrase “too good to be true.” comes to mind when I look at the prices.
My full time employer provides T gear and it is great, but not worth the $12K delta in price. Unless you are consistently working in urban environments with tall structures or in heavily tree’d areas the Emlid will perform just as well and most of the time that turns into TS work anyway. They get mad at me because I choose to use my Emlid on the GEODNET RTK network rather than setting up a base & rover (they won’t pay for their network), but I really don’t care unless they give me a cease & desist. I needed to literally shoot in one control point yesterday and was done in 15 minutes where it would have taken that long just to setup the base, not including the extra walking just to get to the onsite base location. Now that Emlid Flow has localization, linework generation, DXF imports and surface staking there is very little that T FieldLink or Access will do that most users need. Of course you can run a local base and correct via radio, but I haven’t done that in over a year.
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I have used both receivers and I own a RS3. They are not of the same caliber and the price reflects that! Tr…e has more refined receivers and software. I am not saying that Emlid is bad but you may need some features which they don’t provide at the moment. So…
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Emlid is great for using them as base. The Ntrip caster is amazing and easy to use. Also now you can use dual correction output and use LoRa and Ntrip caster at the same time. So is great for combining multiple receivers and drones for larger scale projects.
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The battery life is great even in cold weather. I had 8 Hours of use in -4 Celsius and the battery was still going.
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The Emlid flow needs some upgrades in my opinion, first of all you need a subscription plan to be able to use all the features… You can’t stake out a line if you haven’t paid… You have to use your phone and the subscription is paid by Google play. For more advanced stuff, you have to use another software like Fieldgenius, for example the only geoids you can use are the ones provided by Emlid, if you need to use a custom one you are in a bad luck. The import of CAD features is still at early stage.
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Be careful, in RS3 the UHF is ONLY to receive. So be careful what receivers you will try to combine. You can always use an external transmitter but I am not a fan.
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The IMU has poor performance. With firmware updates I have noticed some improvements but still for high accuracy points or staking I turn it off.
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Use a Sim card and Bluetooth. The WiFi is problematic in WiFi crowded areas.
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Low number of channels and no support of L5 leading in poor performance when the sky is obstructed.
RS3 is good all around receiver for its price and Emlid people are listening our problems and suggestions and they try to improve!!! If your budget is low then a pair of RS3 is perfect for most survey projects. If you can give 1-2 thousands more you can get receivers with cameras and EDMs. The pair I found that works best for me is a RS3 and a FJD V10i. The Emlid provides the best features as a base and the FJD has a more refined software, a controller and cameras to help you when staking.
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I’d also be concerned that I would think a newer model Emlid may be showing up soon in case you are buying a lot of them? And no, nobody here knows when… well for the most part. i.e. u-blox’s ZED-X20P
Long time user of Trimble receivers and about 3-year user of Emlid equipment.
We now have 4 full-size Emlid receivers plus 3x M2s. The equipment is solid and the battery performance is great. What’s not so great is the LoRa performance. The built-in radio in the R10/R12 receivers is 2 Watts as opposed to the 0.5 Watt radio in the Emlid receivers. I get up to 10 km reach with our Trimble receivers (without an external radio), while I’m getting 1.5-2km in good conditions (line-of-sight) with Emlid. But don’t put a sanddune in the way. That kills the radio really quick. We use our RTK equipment for scientific research projects, so our use cases are generally quite different from most engineering or cadastral surveys…
I think it all depends on your use case and how complicated your processing needs are. The one thing that Trimble has a (very large) edge on is in post-processing software. TBC is MUCH more sophisticated than Emlid Studio. But, for many basic tasks, Emlid Studio is not only sufficient, it is also easy to use. You state static applications as a use case. I think Emlid Studio is actually quite capable for this specific application. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that TBC has (as far as I know, there’s no web download built into Emlid Studio, so you’ll have to download your base files yourself), but it gets the job done.
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I’m interested in getting clarification on something. As I said earlier, I use Trimble as well and was wondering how you use Access or Fieldlink without paying for it? Can you share what features are you using on a daily basis that Flow Survey does not do yet? Just curious to see what’s road-mapped. Considering Trimble has a 30-year head start I’d say Emlid is doing pretty well.
HA! Funny how this dude pushes the pole tip into the ground instead of using a topo foot 
Pretty typical for what you see in the field. If you look at it again he is occupying a hub/pin that is raised so the tip is actually on the same plane as the material. Not sure what the camera view does in this instance besides waste battery on both ends.
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