Son 'near' - Inventor 'farmer'

Techmart 2005 - National technology equipment market recognized the mark of 15 'farmers' inventors. Not trained through the regular school, but the product of the "barefoot scientists" surprised the public.

One of those products is the 'coconut fiber stripping machine' of a true farmer. He also has many inventions applied in life and production, such as: machine to make carpet grass, industrial chicken hatching machine with steam, and in the near future is the coconut fiber net weaving machine. These are Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Son, Vinh Tri hamlet, Khanh Thach Tan commune, Mo Cay, Ben Tre.

1. Road to Vinh Tri hamlet with red soil and dust. From the Thom market along the Thom river, it is nearly 10 km away to reach the "barefoot scientist" Nguyen Ngoc Son set up a headquarters. The dirt covered his nose, but was happy to ask everyone who knew Son 'near', Hai Son, the name of a relative of Vinh Tri hamlet often called him.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Son and the stripping machine just modified the coconut fiber.

Son holds a goat crystal (1967), born in Vinh Long. My father died early, his mother was carrying a armpit to raise three small children everywhere, finally, Mo Cay land became their last stop with the slashing and stripping of coconut fiber.

Son is smart, relatively well educated, passionate about science, but his dream of studying is unfinished because of the failing exam in Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (Electronics Department) in 1985. No resignation, Son explores the town to register Vocational training electronic repair. Being a professional but the electronic repair profession cannot help him to cover his life, Son 'near' turns to do all things: masons, carpets, officers pay salaries to the People's Committee of Khanh Thach Tan Commune. Many occupations but still difficult, in 1997, he was "charming" with the beating, stripping only coconut fiber.

This is a popular profession in the districts of Mo Cay, Binh Dai . (Ben Tre) and some localities in Vinh Long and Tien Giang. Raw materials are fresh coconut shells that have filtered the fruit, the products are manual nets of 20m long, 1m wide. Season only coconut fiber usually starts from April to September every lunar year.

To separate only coconut fiber, before, people had to use the two-piece apparatus of Ben Tre Public-Agricultural Engineering Company, popular from the 90s of the last century. One used to smash the coconut shell, then the shelled coconut shell was put into the stripping machine and the finished product only coconut fiber. Operating machines often requires 10 employees.

Stripping machine only coconut fiber has not improved, labor-intensive, does not guarantee labor safety.

To produce a ton of coconut fiber finished products need 6 'natural' materials (a 'natural' with 1,200 coconut shells). The price of raw materials ranges from VND 120,000-600,000 / natural (about VND 20 / coconut shell), the price of finished coconut fiber ranges from VND 1.6-4 million / ton. Only finished coconut fiber will be packed into 50kg bales for net or export. On average, each day a beating-stripping machine produces 2 tons of finished coconut fiber, a ton of coconut fiber is a finished product of 170,000 / 10 people.

2. The turning point in bringing Son from a purely hardworking farmer into a inventor is a threat to his and his family's life. In mid-2001, his coconut fiber processing facility unfortunately happened two consecutive labor accidents. The reason is that the workers operating the slitter are caught in the stripped gears with coconut fiber. Son's facility is proposed by the Ben Tre Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs to withdraw its business license because it does not guarantee labor safety. If you want to continue doing business, there must be some measures to ensure safety.

In the face of such a choice of life and death , at the end of 2001, Sơn asked an engineer of the Agricultural and Rural Engineering Company to improve the coconut fiber stripping machine to cause an accident. The mechanical engineer, after considering it for a while, shook his head. Being cornered, there is no other way, Son has just learned the job of a welder, on the one hand, to design and improve the coconut fiber stripping machine of the Agricultural and Agricultural Engineering Company. Still using the DT 75 explosive engine, but Son's new machine operates under the dynamic conveyor mechanism by improving gears. And instead of having to use two 'stripping-stripping' machines as before, the modified coconut fiber stripping machine concurrently holds both 'beating' and 'stripping' stages in the same bin. Labor simply transfers raw materials (coconut shells) into the input conveyor. The coconut shell will be rolled into the case by the conveyor belt. Here the improved gears will simultaneously do two tasks of beating and stripping coconut shells. The product will be taken away by another conveyor to pack. Garbage and waste products are also given separately.

Farmers are drying and closing coconut fiber into bales.

Improved coconut fiber stripping machine uses only 5.5 materials for a ton of finished coconut fiber. The highlight is just to use four regular workers, 1.5 times higher productivity than the old one. Each ton of coconut fiber using a labor improvement machine is paid 80,000 VND / day while using the old machine is 35,000 VND."The price of an improved machine is VND 20 million. Each day, an average of 4-6 tons of finished coconut fiber is produced. So compared to the old machine, the coconut fiber stripping machine improves a word more. 200,000 " - Son excitedly said. Since Son invented the "stripped coconut coir crusher", people around him have been learning to switch to using improved machines because of high productivity, reasonable prices, less labor and most importantly safe. The improved machine does not need to work directly next to the material feeding machine and has a conveyor system instead.

3. Son 'near' has an affinity with such innovative 'inventions' . In 1988, Son tin created the 'industrial chicken chicken incubator'. The machine works thanks to a heat-sensing circuit and two egg hatches, an hour of an egg island. At that time, there was no electricity grid, to ensure that the temperature for hatching eggs had to be burned by oil. Especially Son's incubator has two water temperature alarm systems, when the temperature is low or too high compared to the design, it will ring to increase / decrease the temperature. Each such incubator can hatch 1,000 eggs at a time.

'Why don't you start a company, don't register intellectual property for your inventions?' Son confided in his "school" when he went to register for copyright: The time from the time of filing to the time of receiving the certificate is 24 months, it may be longer if the file has a problem or is not completed. good. If you forget to register and continue to improve after you register, you will have to wait longer, while the people around you have learned all the technology! "But coming here will definitely register to establish a company to reach out to the market!" - Son insisted.

Farmer engineer Nguyen Ngoc Son is designing at home.

Son showed me the drawing of the coir net weaving machine which is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2006 designed by AutoCAD 3D. Get acquainted with computers for nearly a year thanks to the popular computer course taken by A in Mo Cay town. After going to school for a few days, Son bought a computer home to learn and learn by himself. He bought books, computer reports about home research, and the idea of ​​designing a lattice machine also started from there.

The more he knew about computers, the more regretful Son was because of the time it took to design the beating machine - stripping only the modified coconut fiber, he absolutely had to do it manually. There are many details that you can do yourself many times because the drawing compared to reality has the wrong number. Now he is able to master the use of graphics programs, design precise and professional machinery details no less than anyone. In addition, Son also often improves his knowledge by regularly going to the Internet to search for information and update new knowledge.

The bearded, austere man has an admirable spirit and creative spirit. Refusing to surrender to difficulties, not afraid of losing the doctor before the ignorance and willing to rush to learn to learn new things, these are just the features of Son - a farmer of the time @!

Lessons and photos: Xuan Thuy