Located in NSW’s Griffith region, Farm 8a Benerembah is a 165 ha property, producing a wide range of grape varieties. Some of the vine row lengths are as long as 800 m, making good fuel consumption even more important, given the high operating pressures required by the irrigation system.
Riverina Water Engineering solved this problem with a new turnkey drip irrigation system designed to operate with the lowest practical fuel consumption without jeopardising the integrity of the system.
The most efficient pump for the job was the Hydro Titan end suction centrifugal pump, which can operate as high as 86% efficiency. The most efficient engines chosen were two Iveco 6.7 litre turbo charged after-cooled engines.
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These engines were purchased without a cooling system in favour of retrofitting heat exchangers to replace both the radiator and turbo air cooler. Filtered irrigation water cools the turbo charged air from around 140oC to below 50oC.
This was all made possible by the Diesel Dog Engine Controller, which controls and manages the systems.
The key advantage of using the Diesel Dog is the fuel savings. Diesel Dog will only allow the engine to ramp to desired set pressures, regardless of dam level, filter conditions and the number of field valves open.
The system is capable of applying a 12mm application of water per day and is designed to operate up to a dynamic pressure of up to 430kpa.
It uses 13 litres of fuel per hour per engine, less than 37 litres per mega-litre pumped.
What is the Diesel Dog?
Built tough for Australian conditions, the Diesel Dog is purpose designed for the operation and control of diesel driven pump sets. The panel is adaptable to all makes and models of diesel engines and pumps.
With simple operation and programming, the Diesel Dog is extremely user friendly. It automatically monitors service intervals and displays the time until next service. If service is too far exceeded, the engine can be programmed to ignore a start command.
The Diesel Dog saves fuel by automatically adjusting engine speed to maintain a constant pump pressure in a closed pressure system regardless of irrigation system flow requirement. The Diesel Dog is also used on lift pump systems to maintain a constant level in a supply channel.
Diesel Dog will monitor and safe guard against faults such as pump flow & pressure, engine RPM, temperature, oil pressure, coolant level, battery voltage and alternator voltage.
Upon receiving a command to start, the Diesel Dog will idle through a ‘warm up’ period before commencing into ‘line fill’ mode to gently fill and pressurise a piped system then continue on to maintain the pre programmed set pressure. Before completely shutting down, the Diesel Dog will idle the engine for a short ‘cool down’ period.
Best of all, the Diesel Dog can be operated on farm or via instant remote access to your mobile phone or home computer.
The Diesel Dog can run single or multiple pump units simultaneously, is capable of multiple pressure set points if required to dramatically further reduce fuel usage.
