The power of invention

He says he's just a simple man who is content with what he has and could get by with a lot less. He used to be a truck driver and has done local backhoe work around Chesapeake, Ohio, but now, he's an inventor.

Paul Wilks is a 59-year-old man who invented and patented a generator known as The Power Wagon. He may see himself as simple, but his ideas aren't.

The Power Wagon is unique from other generators because it doesn't run on gasoline. This generator is built on a short trailer and stores energy created by the turning of the wheels through ring and pinion gears. The rotation of the gears turns a shaft attached to an alternator that charges a bank of 12-volt batteries.

While talking to Paul about his invention, one can sense his passion for it by the way he talks and the look in his eyes. He knows every detail. He rattles off a number — "7,514,803. That's the patent number of The Power Wagon."

A few models of The Power Wagon have been sold to the military and a number of other units have been sold to individuals. Other than the environmental upside and the lack of upkeep required, Paul said people are most impressed with the silence of the machine. Unless one is listening for a cooling fan that rarely needs to run, one won't hear it working.

The 4,000-watt unit stores about 1,800 amp hours, and each battery lasts about 420 amp hours. To charge the generator's batteries all it takes is to pull it behind a vehicle for a few miles at a minimum of 8 mph.

To put it in perspective, Paul puts the generator to work at his garage two miles away from his house while working on more units and different ideas. He said it lasts all day for what he uses it for — power tools and lighting. Of the 1,800 available amp hours, Paul uses only a couple hundred a day.

Paul said he couldn't believe someone didn't come up with this idea before he did and that the idea came to him after a lot of thinking and tinkering.

Before inventing The Power Wagon, Paul had a power inverter system hooked up to his old truck because the power would often go out in his home. However, when he had to go to work in the mornings, his wife was left at home without electricity, so he wanted to find a way to keep the lights on for her.

As a truck driver, Paul had a lot of time to think. In fact, it was while driving that he came up with the idea for the invention.

"One day when I was going to Louisville drivin' truck, I looked across the highway and saw this pickup," he said. "It was real high off the ground. When I saw it I could see the drive shafts and stuff runnin,' but it didn't ring a bell until I saw the trailer he was pullin.'"

The trailer the man was pulling had a ring and pinion system. Paul said as soon as he saw it he knew exactly what he had to do to make The Power Wagon work as he wanted it to and was extremely eager to get home to put it together.

"I wanted to turn around in the middle of the highway right there, but I had to go on to Louisville to get my load," Paul said. "As soon as I got home I started working on it and pieced the first one together. It just about drove me insane. I didn't even want to go to Louisville because I knew I had figured it out right then."

As soon as he got home he went to work on his invention. It started with welding a pulley to the end of the ring and pinion gear that would turn as the gears turned with the movement of the wheels. He attached a belt from the pulley to the alternator and found a way to store that energy in the batteries.

Paul worked and tinkered all the time on the generator, drilling holes in the floor of his house to test it with televisions and other appliances to see if they would work together.

"That's all that was on his mind was The Power Wagon," said Paul's wife Mary. "He had all kinds of holes in the floors, and I think he might have burnt up a few things. Maybe a microwave. I think we had to buy a new one. I think he even messed up my dryer but wouldn't admit it."

"I didn't do that," Paul shouted from the other room.

Aside from just working with The Power Wagon, Mary said Paul was always messing with things and trying to make them better or have more power.

"Sometimes I compare him to Tim Taylor from ‘Home Improvement,'" she said. "After he works on something, it ends up costing you more. He's a dreamer, he's always thinkin' big and his mind is always crankin.'"

While working on the first stages of the generator, Paul had his son, Craig, there for help and support.

"I'd do anything he wanted me to. I really didn't understand it at first until he got it going," Craig said.

Craig said he always knew his dad was a smart guy but never dreamed he would come up with an invention this advanced.

"Dad was just always a worker," Craig said. "The whole time I was growing up he drove a coal truck, and heck, I hardly ever saw him. He would leave at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and wouldn't get back until seven in the evening. He's smart and intelligent, but I just never dreamed he would come up with something like this."

The first model of The Power Wagon was put together hastily. Craig said he and his dad used pieces from his old derby cars that were just lying around in his garage and an old Chevrolet S-10 truck bed.

Paul said as soon as it was completed, he couldn't wait to test it out.

"Craig asked me when I wanted to do it, and I said, ‘Tonight about one, two o'clock while there isn't anybody around,'" Paul said.

That way nobody would know about his idea until it was perfected.

Paul said even after completing and having success with The Power Wagon, he still has ideas floating around in his head — big ones.