Des Moines Register
05-29-07
Counting on success
1, 2 ... 300; Iowan devises seed counter that works lickety-split
By WILLIAM RYBERG
REGISTER BUSINESS WRITER
Jerry DuBois' store in West Des Moines is filled with everything needed to make beer, wine and machines that count seed-corn kernels moving at 70 mph through laser beams and vacuum tubes.
DuBois, 43, a businessman, inventor and former high school science whiz, owns Heartland Homebrew Supply and DuBois Engineering Co.
He sells home-brew supplies in the shop in the historic Valley Junction district, while also spending time in the back of the store as pretty much a one-man production work force for his latest creation, the DuBois Model 2500 high-speed, tabletop seed counter.
"It's a huge breakthrough" because of its speed, DuBois said.
The machine is aimed primarily at seed companies that need accurate counts for research and sampling. The selling point of the Model 2500 is its speed, cutting count times to a matter of seconds, rather than minutes.
The machine can count all kinds of seeds - from tiny ones that produce flowers, to larger ones for corn and soybeans.
A DuBois machine is used at Syngenta's research station in Slater. Syngenta markets agricultural seeds under the Garst brand name and others.
"It's fast and accurate," station manager Robert Proksch said.
Proksch said he's aware of at least one other high-speed counter on the market. The station uses one of them, also. Proksch likes the versatility of the DuBois machine.
DuBois said about two dozen Model 2500s have been sold since going on the market in January. DuBois hopes to sell hundreds, and has plans to move DuBois Engineering to a building in Winterset that has more space this summer. He expects to hire up to six production workers by the end of the year.
For now, however, he makes most of the parts and assembles the machines himself in a machine shop and assembly room in the back of the store.
DuBois has patented the critical counting mechanism portion of the machine.
He's an example of the inventiveness of Iowans.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted 666 patents to Iowans in 2006, one of the higher numbers since 1985, according to a report from the office.
The annual total has been between 324 and 751 in the period.
"As far as the inventiveness of Iowans, I think it's as strong as its ever been," said Tim Zarley, a Des Moines patent attorney.
Patents can go to large companies or to individual inventors. Inventions range from biotechnology innovations to sausage-making machines, Zarley said.
Turning a patented invention into a marketplace success, however, can be tough.
"A lot depends on how hard they work and how badly they want it," he said.
Inventor crafts own counter parts
DuBois has been working hard to get the Model 2500 out there.
He initially contracted out production of many of the parts, but that was expensive. He decided to do much of the work himself. So he bought professional-grade production equipment - including a band saw and a lathe - to precisely craft metal and plastic into parts for the Model 2500.
He taught himself how to run the machines.
He buys the lasers and electronics for the computer-controlled system from local suppliers.
The rest of the work force includes his wife, Julie, the company's bookkeeper, two sales representatives and a part-time employee. DuBois promotes the counter at seed industry trade shows and on a Web site. Machines are sold primarily through two distributors.
The machine is designed to sit on a laboratory countertop or a stand. The Model 2500 is about 16 inches high, 38 inches wide and 20 inches from front to back. It weighs about 100 pounds.
Retail prices, depending on optional equipment, generally fall between $10,000 and $20,000.
'Clear as a bell to do it that way'
Traditional seed counters use a bowl that vibrates and drops seeds through a hole to be counted by a photocell.
An acquaintance in the seed industry suggested that DuBois come up with a faster method. DuBois is known by many for his work in engineering and product development.
DuBois came up with an idea that uses computer programming, a turntable, a vacuum tube and laser beams.
"It's just clear as a bell to do it that way," DuBois said.
With DuBois' system, seeds are loaded into a clear plastic hopper that feeds them onto a turntable where the seeds are sucked into a vacuum tube. The seeds speed through the tube at up to 70 mph, passing through a laser gateway that counts each seed before it drops into a stainless-steel collection bowl.
At the punch of a few buttons on its control panel, the machine can, for instance, count 1,000 seed-corn kernels in eight seconds.
Some of the vibrating machines could take up to a half-hour to do the work, DuBois said.
Traditional counters slower, but accurate
Alan Gaul, a seed conditioning specialist at Iowa State University, said traditional counters that use the vibrating bowl system are dramatically slower, although somewhat more accurate for counting small numbers of seeds.
DuBois' counter has acceptable accuracy for larger counts, Gaul said.
DuBois said the Model 2500 is designed mainly for higher counts, such as those of more than 100 seeds, and is highly accurate for such applications.
The machine, for example, can be used by seed corn companies to make sure that bags going to farmers contain the right number of seeds. A sample of a certain number of seeds can be weighed. That information can be used to assure that the bag contains the right number of seeds, even though the bag is filled by weight.
DuBois sees the use of his machines expanding into more commercial tasks, such as providing an accurate count of seeds that go into vegetable seed packets for gardeners and counts of the seeds that go into large bags used by corn and soybean farmers.
Gaul said, "The potential for high-speed counting is very good."
Reporter William Ryberg can be reached at (515) 284-8104 or