Disto X2 finally available!

Duncan S

New member
Generally speaking, lamp units don't seem to affect the DistoX2 much, but the battery boxes do.
All you can do is try it. Easy way is to place the Disto on a surface and move the helmet towards it. At some point the Disto readings will start changing.

From my experience:
Dive Scurion battery box affects readings at arms length.
Regular Scurion battery box affects readings at elbow length.
Earthworm has only minor affect at small distances.
Phaethon has negligible affect.

It's very hard to get separation  between helmet and Disto in tight crawls.
I usually swap helmets with my laser monkey to improve accuracy. My Phaethon, their Scurion, blimey Scurions are heavy when you aren't used to them!
 

John S

Member
A bigger mistake is having a watch on and using a distox. Watches, especially ones with metal cases but even a plastic one with a large battery can be bad. This is because the hand steadying the distox can make the distox sensors very close to the battery indeed. So best remove the watch.
 

Duncan Price

Active member
John S said:
A bigger mistake is having a watch on and using a distox. Watches, especially ones with metal cases but even a plastic one with a large battery can be bad. This is because the hand steadying the distox can make the distox sensors very close to the battery indeed. So best remove the watch.

I try to remember to remove my watch when surveying and put it in the dry box that I had my Disto in.  On my last trip I only remembered after I had shot two legs so I was able to take back readings without the watch to these stations and was relieved to find that there was little effect but still take my watch off anyway.

For surveying through the tunnel between Chambers 9 and 20 in Wookey Hole we constructed a grid of survey stations with forward and backward shots between them - effectively doing the survey by triangulation - to avoid the influence of all the metalwork and power cables.  Later we did a laser scan of the place.
 

CaviaSpeleo

New member
I have biger problem than I thought.
year I have a lamp with two rare-earth magnet (puslar magnetic)
I tried to put a lamp near the old sensitive monitor and see the changes on the screen. it seems that I spent a year of surveying for norhing  :cautious:
 

Duncan Price

Active member
We did some tests at Wookey Hole today and got large (++ 10 degree) errors by holding diving cylinders near to the Disto.  Not relevant to most people but we've been using a Disto in an aluminium housing for underwater surveying...
 

footleg

New member
Since I ran foul of magnetic interference problems, I always take back shots for every leg with the DistoX. That way you learn of problems on site as soon as they occur. You also detect if your DistoX is not properly calibrated. It doesn't slow down the survey (with a team of 3) because the sketching is still the slowest part of the operation. So a couple of people doing Disto operation and station setting can easily shoot both forward and back shots for every leg in the time is takes the sketcher to draw the area covered by that leg. The software on the PDA (PocketTopo) will tell you if the back shot does not match the forward shot (it will automatically number the stations correctly for the back shot if the readings correspond to the forward leg). e.g. 1 - 2 for the forward leg, then 2 - 1 for the back leg. If the back leg is not a good match for the forward leg it is numbered 2 - 3 instead and you know something is not right. Saves a lot of wasted survey time when something catches you out (like magnetic steel toecaps in your boots as in our case).
 
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