I have took the jump and bought a Vermeer t655 trencher and I am still learning how to run it. My problem is that I cant seem to get it to dig straight. I was wondering what is the correct way to do so. I autotracked a straight line with the tractor with autosteer and tried to follow it and all I did was weave in and out a lot. Any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks Digger
Are you trying to go to fast? We have t455 and I will run a string down the center and bake sure the boom is strait and parallel to the tracks.
Speed is only 10ft per min. I go to start and I kinda line the trencher up to where I want to go and set the turn to 0 and let it go, we go about 15ft and it looks like it is not going straight any more so I turn the dial, and over shoot it and I get a weave and it just escalates after that. When running the trencher what is the proper way to run it are you supposed to turn the dial while running it or is 0 truly 0 and will it go straight? Also how do you line it up because you are sitting on the side of the machine. Any and all tips would be greatly appreciated.
I used to work for Vermeer and prior to that actually drove the same trencher. When driving the trencher, we had a chain hanging from the machine on the front RHS. Using a painted line on the ground I would follow that. It needed constant adjustments but it takes time for them to take affect so a little bit at a time is what you need. More recently I worked as a fitter, working on T1255 and T1655 surface miners. They used to drift when cutting in medium/high speed. The reason for this is that the machine uses the speed sensors on the travel motors in these modes but not in low. I dont recall if the T655 had high/low mode. If it does, it may need to be calibrated. If it has the techplus this can be easily done using the operaters station
We have to rods that the operator can see and run a string to follow
The operator of ours rigged up a vertical rod hanging like a plumb bob or pendulum able to swing left or right (painted white) at the front of the machine mounted on the radiator frame, he then marked a vertical line (with black permanent marker) on the windscreen looking towards the pendulum, star pickets were painted (ours were fluorescent green and white) to make them easy to see these were placed standing, lined up alternative colours(green then white and so on a lot easer to see ) by our surveyors, along the trench to be dug allowing for the distance from the chain centre to the mark on the window. Looking through the window it all lined up perfectly, just keep them lined up perfect trench.
A few pics of how we try to keep straight, it works well.