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DATASHEET 0009
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HOW TO SURVEY AND SET OUT WITH THE ELTAR55

TOTAL STATION
This tutorial will show you how to survey and set out with the EltaR55 instrument.
It takes approximately 1 hour.
You will need:
1. Charged EltaR55, tripod
2. Prism & pole (someone to hold them, or a bipod)
3. Station point (S) with known co-ordinates (e.g.1000,1000,100)
4. Several points (A2,A3,A4 which will form a line, B which is a
feature, e.g. a tree/manhole etc.)
5. Backsight point (A)

1. Set up the instrument over station point A (see Datasheet 0001 – How to set up a
theodolite over a point.
2. Press ON
3. Display shows
Zeiss Elta R55
V 3.00 Firmware Version
1995-1997
Carl Zeiss
4. Display briefly flashes up the following instrument status
Addco 0.000 should be 0.000 for Zeiss prism Important
Scale 1.000000 should be 1.000000 Important
Temp 10C should be approx. 10C Not critical
Pressure 980Hpa should be approx. 980-1000 Not critical
5. The display shows the telescope and prompts to tilt the telescope up and down in the
vertical direction to initialize the vertical circle
6. The display shows the telescope and prompts to rotate the instrument in the
horizontal plane to initialise the horizontal circle.

CHECKPOINT 1: Display should now show

SD xxxx.xxx m
Hz dd.mm.ss
V dd.mm.ss
Note: a. If the display does not show the above SD in the top left hand corner, press
the leftmost button repeatedly until it does
b. If the display does not show metres press the button under 2 and select m
by pressing the leftmost button
c. If the display does not show degrees minutes seconds (DMS) press the
button under 2 and the 2nd button from the left. You may have to do this
several times to toggle through the 4 settings (deg,mil,grd,DMS).
d. If the display shows only lines instead of mm and minutes & seconds you
need to level up the instrument.
7. Hold the ON key and press the key above MENU
8. Move the highlight down until 3. Coordinates is highlighted and press the button
below YES
9. Select KNOWN STATION

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10. The display will show a small sketch with the total station at point S and backsight
point A. Select S
11. Select Input (See below for selecting Co-ordinates points from Internal Memory)
12. Select Input again
13. Input Easting co-ordinate by using the buttons under the  symbols to position
the cursor and the buttons under  symbols to select the number, press OK when
finished.
14. Input the Northing co-ordinate in the same way.
15. Display shows the same sketch and there are now 2 new options Hz & NE. These
are the options to backsight. Select Hz (see below for Backsighting to a Known
Point).
16. Rotate the instrument until the display shows Hz 00’0” and press the MEAS button
The display will now hold the 00’0” display.
17. Rotate the instrument until it points in the direction of point A, and press the MEAS
button.
18. Display now shows the co-ordinates of the station S (1000,1000,100), press YES
button, instrument will record the stationing and revert to the Menu.
19. Starting Survey
20. Select Polar/Detail Pts.

CHECKPOINT 2: At this stage you are stationed on point S and are oriented with 0
towards point A. The instrument checks that at this stage.
First it asks are the co-ordinates of the station point (Es, Ns) correct, if they are
press the YES button
Then it checks if the orientation is correct, if it is press the YES button
21. You then enter the reduced level of the station point and the height of the instrument,
by selecting the button under ih/Zs.
22. Enter Zs=100.000 and measure the height of the instrument from the + on the side of
the instrument to the top of the station.
23. Confirm ih/Zs by pressing YES
24. The display shows (N,E,Z) = (0,0,0), and is waiting for you to measure the first
point. First, though you need to enter the Point Number and Point Code for the point
25. Hold the ON key and press the PNr button
26. The display should show the point number to be 1 (the bottom line) and no point
code is shown. Press the  button and the cursor will move to the top line, press this
button 4 more times until the last position on the top line is highlighted and then
press the + button so that A comes up. We have now given the point a Point Code
of A and the instrument will automatically increment the point number of succeeding
points by 1.
27. Press o.k.
28. Put the prism on the first point, sight on the prism and press MEAS.
29. When measurement is complete ‘Recording to add. xx’ will show.
30. Move the prism to the next point. You can see that the point code is the same with
the point number increased to 2 by pressing ON + PNr. Measure the point.
31. Measure the next point in the same way.
32. For the last point change the point code to TREE, by moving the cursor to the
appropriate place on the top line and scrolling through the letters until the correct
letter shows.

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CHECKPOINT 3:
33. You can check what you have surveyed by ESC x 3 times, and then ON + EDIT
followed by DISP. The display will show the Point Number and Code of the last
point and  scroll arrows. The double arrow at the bottom right allows you to
switch to the E,NZ or the SD,Hz,V1 of the point.
34. This completes the Surveying part of this tutorial.

35. Setting Out.

36. After Surveying the points above you can now go on to set out these points. (To
enter other setting out points into memory, see below).
37. Select Stake Out from the Coordinates menu
38. Press YES three times to confirm the station point, reference direction and instrument
height.
39. Display shows “Stake Out Z:off” which means that you will be setting out E,N only.
You can turn on levelling by pressing Z-1.
40. Press ENZ and Internal Memory.
41. Press ?P and enter point number 1. Display shows the address, code and number for
the first point we surveyed. Pressing the double arrow shows the coordinates. Press
OK.
42. Display now shows on the top line the horizontal distance you need to go out with
the prism, and on 2nd line the present horizontal angle. You must turn until the
horizontal angle is 0 and sight in the prism. When you are sighted on the prism
press MEAS.
43. Display then shows:
Dl xxx.xxx = distance you need to go to the point (-ve = n earer)
Dc xxx.xxx = distance perpendicular to the line of sight (should be
0 if Hz=)
Dr xxx.xxx = radial error.
44. Press the  button twice to see the error in the height
45. You can reposition the prism and continue to press MEAS until you are happy with
the setting out of the point. When OK is pressed the error in the point is recorded.
And you can select another point for setting out.
46. This concludes the Setting Out part of the tutorial.

Inputting Co-ordinates
1. At Checkpoint 1 above hold the ON button and press the EDIT button
2. Press INP
3. Press ENZ for Easting, Northing, Height.
4. Press Input
5. Enter the Easting Co-ordinate by moving the cursor with the  buttons and
scrolling up/down with the +/- buttons. Press OK
6. Enter the Northing and Height Co-ordinates in the same way. Press OK.
7. Display will then show the co-ordinates entered, and the double arrow will scroll
over to view the Point Number & Code, Press ON + PNr to change the point
number and code. The  will move between one Code (C ) and Number (P)
and +/- will scroll through the letters or numbers.
8. Press OK when complete.
9. Press OK again to record and display will show address point is recorded to.
10. This completes Inputting Co-ordinates.

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Selecting Co-ordinates from the Internal Memory

When the option Internal Memory is displayed (e.g. Selecting station co-ordinates or
setting out point) you can select points from the internal memory.
1 Select Internal Memory
2 Display shows “Receive of data lines” and selection options :
?P for point number
?C for point code
?A for point address
3 If you select ?P e.g. enter the point number you want to find and press OK.
4 If the point indicated is not the correct one you can press ? to find the next point
with that number or you can ESC to escape or scroll up down with the arrow keys.

Backsighting to a Known Point

1. Instead of setting the horizontal angle to orient the instrument you can backsight
to a known backsight point by selecting EN at 15. above.
2. Select Internal Memory (you can only do this if you have the correct co-ordinates
of the point you wish to backsight to)
3. Select the backsight point. You must select co-ordinates (E,N,Z), not SD, Hz, V1
4. Display shows 2 options:
Meas. SD/Hz/V If you have the prism on the point. This gives
a more accurate check on your stationing
Meas. Hz/V You can backsight like with this even if you
don’t have the prism at the point
5. Select Meas. SD/Hz/V
6. Press MEAS
7. Display shows the co-ordinates of the station point, press YES
8. Display then shows the SCALE FACTOR based on the co-ordinates of the points
and distance between them. ALWAYS select scale 1.000000, which should be
OLD.
9. Stationing is now complete.

© HITECHNIQUES Ltd. 1999

This datasheet may be copied and freely distributed only as a complete unit.
HITECHNIQUES LTD. DATASHEET 0009
Tel: 01-4580725 Page 5 of 5 E-Mail: survey@iol.ie

CONFIGURATION
To ensure the above tutorial runs smoothly, you must set the configuration as follows:

1. Setting Instrument
Angle 1”
Distance 0.001m
V-Refer zenith
Coord.Syst. NE
Coord.Displ E,N
Temperature C
Pressure hPa
Turn Off OFF
Sound ON
EDM T-out OFF
Angle DMS
Distance m

2. Setting Interface
Recording MEM/3
Format R4
Parity none
Baudrate 4800
Protocol XON/XOFF
Position C 11
Position P 16
Position I 1
T-O Rec. ON NO
PC-Demo OFF

© HITECHNIQUES Ltd. 1999

This datasheet may be copied and freely distributed only as a complete unit.