Accessories of Total Station in Surveying

The total station is an instrument that is primarily designed as a combination of electronic transit theodolite, an electronic distance meter (EDM), and software that runs on an external computer which is referred to as the data collector.

  1. Accessories of Total Station in Surveying  

In addition to the major components, the total station also requires some additional accessories.

Such accessories include the keyboard, control panel, data collectors, reflectors, memories, etc which have been described in brief below.

a. Keyboard

The keyboards are essential accessories of Total Station required for giving the command to the microprocessor inbuilt into the total station as it contains various keys.

Such keys include command keys, switching keys, lighting keys, power keys, etc.

The different types of keys incorporated into the keyboard with their function have been listed as follows:

Power Key:

To switch on or off the total station.

Star Key:

To switch from one mode to another and to change the settings of the total station.

Illuminator Key:

To turn on/off the laser pointer and the guiding light, to light the reticle as well as select the screen backlight brightness.

Esc Key:

To return to the previous screen or cancel the input data.

Tab Key:

To switch to another item.

B.S Key:

To delete an item on the left side.

S.P Key:

To input a blank space.

FUNC Key:

To switch between the observations.

ENT Key:

Select or Accept any input value or observation.

Shift Key:

To switch between lowercase and uppercase characters.

Target Keys:

To switch between the different targets.

PRG Key:

To switch between different modes of the program.

b. Data Collector

As the name itself implies, the data collector collects and stores the observed data or observations.

The entire operation of taking in and storing the data is controlled by the data collector.

The data collector stores the data either in binary form or ASCII.

Data collectors can be further divided into external data collectors and internal data collectors.

c. Memory

The total station is equipped with inbuilt memory cards to process and store the data or observations.

The memory card provided in the total stations is generally up to the PCMCIA standards.

The memory card can have a capacity ranging from 5000 to 10,000 coded points.

The data held by the memory card can be unloaded on any computing device.

d. Reflector

The reflector is one of the most essential accessories of the total station. This is because the total station functions or takes the measurements utilizing the reflected rays.

The reflector comprises a specially built reflecting prism made up of cubes or blocks of reflecting glasses.

e. Software

In most of the total stations, the operating system used is Windows CE.

Hope you got an idea of the Accessories of Total Station in surveying.