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Ditch Witch SK650 vs. Vermeer S600TX
OK, so a few months back I was ready to purchase a mini skid. I narrowed it down to the two above from all the research I had done. Not to take anything away from other mini's, but these seemed to be the most powerful with most intuitive controls.
I had the Vermeer for about two weeks, then I had the Ditch Witch for a week. I had them leave the DW for a second week, and bring the Vermeer back out so I can have them both side by side for a direct comparison. Wow, what a difference in the two machines.
The short of it is, I prefer EVERYTHING about the Vermeer much more then the DW EXCEPT the power, which unfortunately is the most important thing.
Break down:
We have a huge pile of debris in the yard so we used that a lot for a testing ground for the two machines. I had I believe a 52" bucket on the DW and a 44" on the Vermeer.
Controls:
The Vermeer has it all over every mini on the market here, there is nothing easier then having two joysticks to control all functions of the machine. They are extremely smooth, and make the machine a pleasure the use. The throttle is very nice and smooth, and is nice because it will twist and lock into place. Regardless of having both hands on the joysticks its very easy to hold your grip on the machine. Those who have used these know they can get pretty bouncy. The aux. hydraulic control is a fantastic design compared to the DW. Its a friction held stick that will stay in the position that you hold it, and you can reverse the flow if you want as well as adjust it to where you want. Set it and forget it.
Our Guatemalans jumped on this machine and had it down in about 30 minutes.
The DW I was very reluctant to think I would like the controls. I was pleasantly surprised when I received the machine that it was much less troublesome then I previously anticipated. It was pretty easy to move this baby around with the dual independent track controls, though at times it did get a bit gaudy. It was also at times tricky to hold myself on the machine and work it at the same time. The throttle, though I preferred the Vermeer more was nothing bad or out of the ordinary.
The aux hydraulic control how ever left a whole lot to be desired. To be frank, I hated it. It had a foot control to "throttle" the aux, but it would only stay where you had your foot. This guys are edgy, so its very hard to keep the aux at half if that’s what you wanted. You also had to pick this little "bell" up each time you wanted to use it. This was a safety feature, but extremely irksome! There is no reverse on this aux hyd.control, this is just a sever overlook in my thoughts. This is not used often, but when you need it its really nice to have.
As you can tell, I am not a big fan of DW controls, they work but are not natural like the Vermeer’s controls. Unfortunately they have a patent on that control system so I don’t know if anyone else will pay the royalties to use it =(.
Size:
Here the two machines varied quite a bit as well. The Vermeer is overall just a smaller machine which we prefer. The DW has much longer tracks which I figured would be an advantage. This proved to not so much be the case of equal push tests that we did with both machines to see if the longer tracks gave a lot more traction. This proved to not be the case.
The track psi is 4psi for the large tracks on the Vermeer and 5.5 for the narrows. The DW just says 4.5psi, so I am not sure which track that is or how much the longer track helps with PSI, though in the real world this didn’t prove to be much of an issue with the wide track DW we had and the narrow track Vermeer.
The smaller Vermeer was very nice in tighter spots, and I didn’t see anything about it that would be a negative in time we used it.
Ergonomics:
Again, the Vermeer had one huge advantage here. I call it the cock pit "wrap around". The padded sides that protect the operator from objects that may prove to be a threat when you get wrapped up in your work and not paying attention. This helps a great deal with stability on the machine as well. Once you spread your legs slightly you tie yourself into the machine and it would take a serious jolt to knock you loose. This helps immensely with precise control of the machine on tight areas, its very comfortable, and makes your feel very safe.
The DW did not have this feature, and I didn’t like that at all. It feels like a Dingo with the aftermarket platform, again not bad, but not my preference. This coupled with the fact the DW's controls were not as friendly as the Vermeer made the S600TX really pull ahead in this category. So much so that if we decided to get the DW we had already planned on welding the side "wings" on like the Vermeer and adding padding.
Speed:
The Vermeer has a slightly faster ground speed, which was noticeable during the transport of the machine, but I would say totally irrelevant on the purchase of either machine.
The Hydraulics were MUCH faster on the DW. This was a very nice feature. I will go over this is detail in the power section.
Power:
Here is the kicker! The DW has a 31.5 HP turbo charged Kubota diesel, the Vermeer has a 25 HP Kubota diesel. I don’t know if the DW is pulling the extra 6.5hp off of the turbo, or if its a different engine.
Now, I figured there would be some slight difference in the power of the machines beings that there is 6.5 hp difference. I thought the HP difference would be negligible, but wow was I wrong.
First the Vermeer:
After having this bad boy for about two weeks I was floored with what these machines could do. I realized however pushing into the pile of debris with the smaller bucket lifting pushing and dumping became a chore for the machine. I was a bit perturbed by this, but wrote it off as the nature of the beast. I had the "small machine small power" thinking going on. When I would put the Harley Box Rake on put it full tilt and try to adjust it while raking it just didn’t happen. I would have to kill the hydraulic flow to the attachment adjust the tilt and reapply power to the roller. This just didn’t seem right to me, and proved to be a pain if any small adjustments were needed.
When picking up only a small bucket of dirt, this thing had a hell of a time curling it, I thought that something was wrong with the machine. I called my dealer, he told me it was ok, but something didn’t sound right. He said there was a safety valve that is set at the factory and we could turn it up if I bought the machine. This turned out not to be the case, they had removed it somewhere along the line on the newer machines.
Pushing into the pile of debris would cause the Vermeer at times to bog, and if you were trying to operate the boom or bucket while performing the push, you were going to stall almost certainly. I was very depressed, but again just thought it was the lack of power in mini skids in general. WRONG AGAIN!
So Reid, my local DW dealer brings the DW over. My first thought was wow, that’s one ugly machine =)! As weird as it sounds I love the look of the Vermeer, nice small compact ergonomic design and they even put flames on the front shroud!
So I jump on that bad boy after everything is unloaded, but unfortunately had no time to play. The following day however was a real eye opening experience!
The DW came with a much larger bucket as seen in the pics, I believe a 52", I believe that’s what was written on the quote since I liked the bucket that was on there.
I take the machine to the debris pile, push into the pile pick up a HUGE bucket of debris drive further into the pile and dump like its no ones business! I moved probably 40 yards of debris, including huge logs in about 25-30 minutes of playing between pushing/dumping. I just couldn’t believe the power that machine had! Hardly nothing bogged the DW unless I really pushed it, I felt like it had nearly the same amount of power of my Case 1840, of course it didn’t, but wow!
I put the Rake on, put it on full tilt, and attempted to adjust its position. The DW did this job flawless and effortlessly. I couldn’t believe the ease that this machine exhibited while using hydraulics. The power is hard to explain. It made the Vermeer look like a toy, literally. The DW destroys the power of the Vermeer.
This was of course heart breaking for me, I was thinking this was a done deal for myself and the Vermeer dealer. So I call up Chad (local Vermeer rep, and great guy). I ask if he can swing by, which he did and I showed him the difference. I think he was about as impressed as I was, of course he cant show it being the Vermeer dealer. He even came back with another fellow to show him how much of a difference there actually was between the two machines and see if something was wrong.
Major victory for the DW here!
I wrote to Jon, a very helpful Vermeer guy from another site. After a bit of research he informed me that the Vermeer actually has 3 pumps, opposed to the DW that has 4. I think this is the whole story here behind the power of the DW.
So, though my mind was made up on the Vermeer, and I decided I better demo the DW before I sign the papers my entire outlook was changed when the DW arrived. Now I have neither machine in my shop in hopes that Vermeer steps it up and matches the power of the DW. I just coulndt bring myself to drop the coin on the DW since I think that the Vermeer really outshined it in every other category, but couldn’t drop the coin on the Vermeer since the DW destroyed it in power.
In most applications that ppl use these machines for, the Vermeer has plenty of power. However if I am buying a machine I want maximum machine for my dollar. I think if Vermeer ups the HP a tad and add in the additional hydraulic pumps, there will be an untouchable skid on the market!
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-Chris
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