Choosing survey gear to buy

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Re: Choosing survey gear to buy

Postby NZcaver » Jul 13, 2009 12:15 am

I think you'll find the shrink wrap will obscure your compass/clino eyepiece and make instrument reading more difficult. Even though it's "clear" when wrapped directly onto a surface, if several layers of it are stretched across the eyepiece they may act like an unfocused lens.

Several years ago I applied a bead of silicone around the edge of the compass and clino discs. Like rchrds said, they are press-fit into the housings and therefore not totally sealed. The silicone helped - at least for a while. I peeled it off eventually, mainly because I haven't surveyed in many nasty, wet, muddy caves in recent years. :wink:
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Re: Choosing survey gear to buy

Postby Chads93GT » Jul 13, 2009 9:35 am

KeyserSoze wrote:What if you shrink wrapped the entire instrument in plastic? The plastic couldn't have any effect on the function of the compass or clino, could it? And as long as the plastic doesn't distort the view through the eye piece, then it seems like you would have an almost fool proof method of turning the Suunto into the perfect piece of cave surveying gear.

Is there a place where you can get things shrink wrapped without having to own a machine yourself? Maybe at Kinkos or something? I have a new Suunto coming in the mail so I will test out this idea and report back here.


Just be careful while caving and you wont trash your instruments. hard cases work wonders when moving from station to station through mud and water crawls.
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Re: Choosing survey gear to buy

Postby Rankin » Aug 30, 2013 4:11 pm

trogman wrote:Those little glo-sticks work great-you can find them in the fishing gear dept. of Wally World or other similar stores. Be careful of ANY type of standard flashlight anywhere near your compass! It will affect your reading, sometimes a little, and sometimes a lot. Stenlights can be particularly bad, since they use a magnetic switch. Even the little keychain LED lights will throw off a compass if they get too close. Just thought I would mention that. It stinks when you get to the end of a survey session and suddenly discover that the little LED you've been using to light up your compass is affecting your readings!
Stephen Brewer (The Trogman) :helmet:


I agree here! I can certainly tell what NOT to do. I had a wild idea of placing a 4 watt laser on the straight edge of my Tandem and pointing it at the target,,, (not for lighting the instrument, but for long sightings) It turns compass about 90 degrees! It still works fine on the clinometer, just apply the extra height when computing your HI.
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Re: Choosing survey gear to buy

Postby gindling » Sep 2, 2013 10:16 am

Clear ToolDip works very well. I posted about it before on CaveChat.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15194#p128151

As Scott replied there may be some interference with the way I stacked them, but no one has mentioned any problems so far when they have used them, but time will tell, just gotta keep surveying. You could of course not stack them and dip individually, whatever works for you. I have recently redone these twice now and the ToolDip comes off easily and cleanly.
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