Lasert Tape with Laptop


wjmdes
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I purchased Bosch GLM 100C and an Ipad and the room planner software several years back.  Works great as long as house is not too big.  I now just take the laptop to the site, which is much easier and much more efficient.  

Has any one had success using any Bluetooth laser tape with Chief.  The bosch connects but will not do anything.  Bosch customer service does not understand my question and have not found good answers on Google.

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I use Leica lasers with “some” success.   It, for me, is more trouble than its worth trying to transfer the dimensions directly from the laser to Chief.   I did a video about a year ago showing what I learned.   

Dan Bauman is a big proponent of taking laptops in the field and you may want to search Chieftalk and Google for some of his methods.

Good Luck!

-Charles

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59 minutes ago, Charles said:

Dan Bauman is a big proponent of taking laptops in the field

Any idea how to find Dan?  Surely someone does this.  I can't believe more Chief users do not field measure   The thing about your video is the "extra" step to tell the Leica "OK", that could get annoying and makes no sense.

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4 hours ago, Charles said:

I use Leica lasers with “some” success.

My son and I watched the video and looked at some docs.  It looks like you need to check one of the boxes for the program to either do a "return" or "tab".

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Looks to me like that was the main issue you had.  I ordered one will report back on how well it works.

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2 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

Yep, i.m just saying it works great with room planner why not Chief.

Don't know, there is definitely a lack of communication software between the laptop and laser tapes.  My Bosch will connect to laptop, but not do a thing.  Room Planner worked great for as-builts on smaller stuff, but then I had to come home and import, etc.  With the laptop and a good template file, I can send a completed as-built drawing as soon as we are done measuring from the field.  We have been manually entering dimensions and that works great, but this should shave some more time off.  Definitely worth the $150 for the Disto D2, if not back to Amazon on Monday!!

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On 5/22/2018 at 8:15 AM, wjmdes said:

Any idea how to find Dan?  Surely someone does this. 

 

https://www.chiefexpertsacademy.com   Dan does not transfer the info directly into chief.   He takes a notepad, measures the room while noting the measurements, then transfers it into chief in the field.

This is my new go-to method also after many frustrating tries using the direct input.

On 5/22/2018 at 1:52 PM, DRAWZILLA said:

Yep, i.m just saying it works great with room planner why not Chief.

Do you do a whole house in room planner?     My experience doing this has led to poor results with the exterior and interior dimensions never matching.     Room Planner only allows you to dimension the interior walls directly unless I have missed something.   I'd love to know how you do it for a whole house!! 

 

Thanks, Charles

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10 hours ago, Charles said:

https://www.chiefexpertsacademy.com   Dan does not transfer the info directly into chief.   He takes a notepad, measures the room while noting the measurements, then transfers it into chief in the field.

This is my new go-to method also after many frustrating tries using the direct input.

Do you do a whole house in room planner?     My experience doing this has led to poor results with the exterior and interior dimensions never matching.     Room Planner only allows you to dimension the interior walls directly unless I have missed something.   I'd love to know how you do it for a whole house!! 

 

Thanks, Charles

I have done a few but I don't like the software for room planner ,no consideration for the exterior lot and I must take out my paper to do that, no problems using the laser though. Even if we could just draw lines easily for exterior and lot lines that would be better.

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11 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

Dan has a Video on his method here in the CA Library......

That actually has some great ideas, however, with one of my boys in tow to use the laser tape, we can measure and draw an as-built of a 4000SF tenant space in less than an hour including sending the finished drawings to the client from the site

 

The time we waste now is hollering across a room with the info from the laser tape and if it is miss heard or entered wrong, we may have to fix when things do not line up later.

 

I am only trying to find a solution so the Laser Tape will enter the data to a LAPTOP, I know it works with the Ipads and phone.

I got a DISTO D2 yesterday and it works every other time we take a measurement and only for dimensions.  It absolutely will not work in dialog boxes for , doors, windows, etc..  I have a call into Technical support and if we can not fix, back in the box and back to Amazon.

 

As for Room Planner, great app for what it is intended for , but I believe that 80% of us on here it is not adequate for time and efficiency to get an as-built drawing.

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We do it on every remodel.  Personally, I think the laptop is the only way to go.

We use the Leica-Disto-S910 (with the pro pack). It has worked great for us. 

For some basic topo and tree locate work we use the dxf function and import it into SketchUP.  It would probably work to import the point data directly into Chief but we haven't tried it yet. 

We followed Charles' video (posted above) for how to directly input into Chief and we use that method for 85% of our as-builts, but there is so much more you can do with the S910.  We haven't had any issues transferring dimension directly into Chief once it was set up.

I also love the fact that I get to capture a picture of each shot (low quality) but that data comes in handy if you need to go back and confirm where exact you measured to.

if you just want the measurements take a look at this video

On 5/22/2018 at 10:13 AM, Charles said:

I use Leica lasers with “some” success.   It, for me, is more trouble than its worth trying to transfer the dimensions directly from the laser to Chief.   I did a video about a year ago showing what I learned.   

Dan Bauman is a big proponent of taking laptops in the field and you may want to search Chieftalk and Google for some of his methods.

Good Luck!

-Charles

 

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Well that little piece of technology is a little out of my budget.  My son, Mr. computer whiz has messed with it for hours, it works half the time for dimensioning a room and will not work at all in a dbx or even in MS Excel.  I have left numerous messages with support at Leica and no response at all.  I just can not believe this is not some thing that has benn mastered, it should be just a simple pseudo macro or program.  They work marvelously with an Ipad, so I just don't know.  Guess we will continue with the shouting across the room.

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