Jeff Edwards oversees his family farm in Sherrill with the eyes and hands of an inventor.
Necessity prompted Edwards, who founded IH Power Source LLC, to come up with a new way to produce power for irrigation well pumps used in agriculture.
“Three years ago we got into a situation where we needed to irrigate but it was too late in the season to purchase a new system, but we still needed to irrigate,” Edwards said. “I talked about it with my uncle David Edwards and we decided to try to build a power unit from an old 18-wheeler truck we had. We overhauled the diesel engine and had the driveshaft retrofitted to fit to the wellhead. So, we fired it up. It was doing good with fuel efficiency but we tried to do better.
“We shifted the transmission to a higher gear and the rest is history,” Edwards said as he went on to explain the difference in fuel efficiency that is achieved through adjusting the transmission gears.
“Before we adjusted the transmission we were burning 100 gallons of diesel fuel per day,” Edwards said. “After the adjustments we were only burning around one gallon per hour or 24 gallons per day.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Edwards presented the first Variable Torque System at a news conference and demonstration on Aug. 5, 2011.
According to a press release provided by Edwards, the VTS is a power unit that improves and transfers transportation technology from on-the-road use to farm production.
Edwards said that one of the critical features of his power unit is the inversion of the transmission from its normal alignment.
“With the design change from the VTS to the ITS one of our goals is to use a lower engine RPM and achieve a greater flow rate out of the wellhead,” Edwards said in explaining the difference between the two systems.
Edwards said that with the VTS for every revolution of the engine the wellhead turns 1.54 times, while the ITS produces 2.63 turns of the wellhead for every turn of the engine.
The adjustment of the gears in the ITS allows the engine to produce lower RPMs while at the same time maintaining a higher wellhead RPM, which translates into lower fuel costs and higher irrigation water output.
“It is all about the gearing of the transmission,” Edwards said. “What we are doing is achieving the mechanical advantage with gearing. It’s all in the drivetrain of a power unit.”
In a press release Edwards notes that the reconfiguration of the transmission for the ITS requires the use of a Torque Inversion Connector Assembly that he developed.
“A while,” Edwards responded when asked how long it took to develop the connector assembly.
The reconfiguration transfers the drive train on the power unit from the traditional direct drive to a mechanically assisted drive.
“This entire unit was built under a pecan tree,” Edwards said of the power unit that was providing irrigation to the farm of his cousin Ronald Edwards, whose land lies next door. “This is the first unit we sold. Ronald’s old power unit was taking seven gallons per hour and now the fuel consumption is down to one gallon per hour.”
Edwards calculated the fuel savings of a farmer who begins using one of the new power units based upon a $3.50 per gallon fuel cost.
“If you start with someone whose old power unit takes 100 gallons of diesel per day and then compare that to one of our units which only consumes 24 gallons of fuel per day, you have a savings of 76 gallons of fuel per day,” Edwards said. “At $3.50 per gallon that is a savings of $266 per day or $1,862 per week.”
Edwards said that with an estimated price of $13,000 for one of his power units, a typical farmer could recoup his investment within seven weeks.
Hurley Jones is a consultant who has worked closely with Edwards on the development of the power unit.
“I think this project is about technology transfer,” Jones said. “The smaller and more compact power units won’t be better on your pocketbook. The people who sell fuel don’t have the same priorities that you do. This power unit that is being developed is a new way of thinking about power conversion. It is a combination of the mechanical and the chemical, with the transmission adjustment allowing the unit to burn less fuel. The gears on the transmission were adjusted to improve its efficiency.”
New life for old trucks
“Giving old trucks new life,” Edwards said to explain one of the benefits of his power unit design. “We are recycling old trucks.”
In the press release Edwards said he recycling of diesel engines into the farm production sector will extend the useful life of the engine and reduce fuel costs.
Edwards said that he actively searches for wrecked diesel trucks to salvage the engines and drivetrains.
“The truck may be wrecked but the engine is usually fine,” Edwards said.
Advice sought
Keith Admire with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, was on site at the Edwards farm Thursday morning to lend his expertise to Edwards’ efforts to accurately quantify the efficiency of the power units.
“I am the director of the agency’s water management service and Hurley Jones was looking for help in measuring the efficiency of the power units and so I am here to provide whatever expertise I can,” Admire said. “We are looking at ways to measure the efficiency of the units.”
Jerry Walker is an irrigation specialist with the NRCS.
“I was asked to provide some assistance in looking at the system and making recommendations for how it could be assessed,” Walker said. “I had heard about the equipment and being here has given me an opportunity to get a better understanding of how the equipment works.”
Local support
District 13 Justice of the Peace Edward Spears was on hand to get a close-up view of the power unit.
“As a county official I try to be available and accessible if I can do anything for them,” Spears said. “I like the overall project because it will ultimately create jobs here in Jefferson County. I am totally excited about this. We hope to be a model for the state and for the nation.”
Reginald Adams, who last week was elected as a justice of the peace, is a hands-on contributor to the project. Adams is a fabricator who worked with Edwards to produce the Torque Inversion Connector Assembly and other aspects of the project.
“There is so much coming from this,” Adams said. “It is all about creating. We have to be able to support inventions like this.