+1 wow!...Jonathan, thanks for taking the time to write this pragmatic, thoughtful, comment!
Blk360 or Faro S120
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Re: Blk360 or Faro S120
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Re: Blk360 or Faro S120
I'll add another +1 Jonathan.
I did read through your whole commentary. We have a BLK360 that was slightly bumped somehow and was sent to Switzerland for Calibration and certification. It was sent back without any noticeable results in the alignment of the camera and the actual scan (verified by Black and white targets). Final solution was a swap of the entire unit so not sure about any reparability on that part.
We are a county government with a closet full of Wild Leica equipment that sits because there is no easy mechanism (I've been told ) to disperse of equipment purchased with the public's tax money.
When I worked for Leica Geosystems decades ago (1996-2002) there was an idea floated internally on a Leica -lease -for life where new equipment would be available everytime something new came out for a cutting edge company, and the last generation units would be taken back in and returned to a re-purchasing pool at a lower depreciated cost to a not so techinically demanding crowd (NGO's, Third world government agencies, etc, archeologists, etc.). Never knew if anyone really did a financial analysis of this. But I know of a lot of older or retired surveyors who might buy a fully functional unit for their weekend warrior work or for personal use , who would never buy or could afford a higher price piece of the latest technologically advanced equipment.
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Re: Blk360 or Faro S120
DoctaSayas wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 1:57 pmMy 2 cents. A full BLK 360 with 55 scans takes me 5 hours to transfer to Via Wifi using the "BLK Manger". If I fill it up in the field your done for the day.
The wifi only is slow. The cable to Recap is faster but leaves you with no RAW FILES to archive. Having raw files to hand off to a third party is a big deal if you need to have someone verify your results.
I have not used any Faro equipment just Leica.
James,
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Re: Blk360 or Faro S120
I'm facing a similar decision to the OP and this sounds like a big turn-off. What settings are you using when you fill up the BLK360 with 55 scans (resolution, photos, etc)? How much storage space is on your unit? Do you know how many scans would fit with maximum settings vs minimum settings?James Hall wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2019 6:24 pm
My 2 cents. A full BLK 360 with 55 scans takes me 5 hours to transfer to Via Wifi using the "BLK Manger". If I fill it up in the field your done for the day.
The wifi only is slow. The cable to Recap is faster but leaves you with no RAW FILES to archive. Having raw files to hand off to a third party is a big deal if you need to have someone verify your results.
I have not used any Faro equipment just Leica.
James,
For reference, I currently rent a FARO x 130, and get 50-60 full color, 1/4 resolution, 3x quality scans a day for 2 or 3 days at a stretch. Would need similar capability from the BLK360 if possible.
Thanks!
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Re: Blk360 or Faro S120
I am using Medium scan with HDR photos. I'm unsure about the size of the data storage . The storage is internal and only accessible by WIFI. All the units have the same 55 scan capacity as far as I know. There is a standalone BLK data manager that downloads the raw .blk files, Download with Leica iPad BLK app, It can download using Recap, and you can download using Cyclone Core.donCPS wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:06 pmI'm facing a similar decision to the OP and this sounds like a big turn-off. What settings are you using when you fill up the BLK360 with 55 scans (resolution, photos, etc)? How much storage space is on your unit? Do you know how many scans would fit with maximum settings vs minimum settings?
For reference, I currently rent a FARO x 130, and get 50-60 full color, 1/4 resolution, 3x quality scans a day for 2 or 3 days at a stretch. Would need similar capability from the BLK360 if possible.
Thanks!
I use Cyclone Core and the BLK data manager and would have to set the unit on High rez and fill it up to tell you how many scans it holds. My guess it 50 to 55.
James,
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Re: Blk360 or Faro S120
I am surprised of your experience.
Mine is different: I can download 11.3GB of files (54 setups at medium resolution + LDR) in less then 1 hour and half (so a fully charged battery is enough).
Gio
Mine is different: I can download 11.3GB of files (54 setups at medium resolution + LDR) in less then 1 hour and half (so a fully charged battery is enough).
Gio
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Re: Blk360 or Faro S120
We own a Faro M70 and a Leica BLK360 scanner. We have been using M70 for two years now. Our BLK we bought second-hand this autumn because we needed a spare machine to survive Faro's 5 week visit to Germany for calibration and repairs. (That's another story, I won't get into it now).
Some random observations:
BLK is better than I expected. It is somewhat less accurate than M70 and definitely no match to the more expensive Faro or Trimble units. However if you have a small job (a few dozen scans) in a difficult place, BLK shines. This week I brought BLK with me on a rooftop mission, about 30 scans to measure the approximate 3D shape of the roof and a dozen or so chimneys. The accompanying Ipad died in 45 minutes because of the chilly weather but I went on with BLK in push-button mode for the remaining 2 hours and got quite useful results. At the office I registered the point cloud and when I combined it with an earlier point cloud of the same area (shot with Faro) they matched within 30 mm everywhere in the ca 20m x 40 m roof area. Perhaps not survey grade but good enough for my purposes.
We do a lot of indoor measurements of flats of family houses. Because of the short distances we tend to use minimum point densities and avoid scanning in color. That way you can do 150-200 scans in a working day. BLK takes pictures faster than Faro, so we can get color scans with minimum point density almost as fast as non-color scans with Faro. Colored pictures in bubble view and colored point clouds definitely help interpretation of the data back at the office.
Because of its small size you can put BLK in places where other scanners simply won't fit. For example I have peeked to the backside of a wall, putting the scanner sideways through a 20 x 20 cm opening. I mounted the scanner upside down on its own tripod, then held the tripod sideways against the wall by hand.
We sometimes install the scanner on a 2,5 m long boom in order to get a better view. Faro weighs 5 kg and our boom configuration requires a 10 kg counterweight for it. We could make the boom twice as long for the same weight if we put a BLK on it.
Some random observations:
BLK is better than I expected. It is somewhat less accurate than M70 and definitely no match to the more expensive Faro or Trimble units. However if you have a small job (a few dozen scans) in a difficult place, BLK shines. This week I brought BLK with me on a rooftop mission, about 30 scans to measure the approximate 3D shape of the roof and a dozen or so chimneys. The accompanying Ipad died in 45 minutes because of the chilly weather but I went on with BLK in push-button mode for the remaining 2 hours and got quite useful results. At the office I registered the point cloud and when I combined it with an earlier point cloud of the same area (shot with Faro) they matched within 30 mm everywhere in the ca 20m x 40 m roof area. Perhaps not survey grade but good enough for my purposes.
We do a lot of indoor measurements of flats of family houses. Because of the short distances we tend to use minimum point densities and avoid scanning in color. That way you can do 150-200 scans in a working day. BLK takes pictures faster than Faro, so we can get color scans with minimum point density almost as fast as non-color scans with Faro. Colored pictures in bubble view and colored point clouds definitely help interpretation of the data back at the office.
Because of its small size you can put BLK in places where other scanners simply won't fit. For example I have peeked to the backside of a wall, putting the scanner sideways through a 20 x 20 cm opening. I mounted the scanner upside down on its own tripod, then held the tripod sideways against the wall by hand.
We sometimes install the scanner on a 2,5 m long boom in order to get a better view. Faro weighs 5 kg and our boom configuration requires a 10 kg counterweight for it. We could make the boom twice as long for the same weight if we put a BLK on it.
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