Hi all,

I am in the Falkland Islands so hiring kit is not an option. I am my company's first Engineer and they do not have a big budget for me for kit. We've been looking at more budget/entry level total stations but finding reviews can be hard. The ones that have so far jumped out as good budget options are Stonex or South, has anyone used these or other budget brands and have a review for me (good or bad!) I am most familiar with Leica kit but that is just ridiculously out of our budget!

Regarding projects, these are not large, whilst I have the ability to do a traverse we can get the government to put control in with GPS for us. Our largest Sites will not be more than 100m square, and the most accuracy that I will need will be for holding down bolts for portal frame warehouses, which can generally be checked with a tape anyway, so mostly I will just need an instrument that will be consistent and 5" will be plenty good enough! As far as I know there is only one other total station in the country and generally position of structures is not as critical as it is in, say, the UK. Obviously I'm more than happy to provide more information if it will help get a good fit for a piece of kit. Regarding calibration, the instrument will be able to be flown to the UK for calibration, and will be best if it could be delivered within the UK as it will be able to be collected to be flown south to here.

Thanks in advance