The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machinery that is well-known within both the construction and agriculture businesses. These equipment are rather similar in both function and appearance to the forklift, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom that can extend forwards as well as upwards from the vehicle. The operator could attach a lot of attachments on the end of the boom. Some of the most common attachments consist of: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
To be able to move loads through locations which are usually not reachable for a typical forklift. The telehandler utilizes pallet forks as their most popular attachment. For instance, telehandlers are able to move loads to and from places that are not usually reachable by conventional forklift models. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from within a trailer and position these loads in high areas, like on rooftops for instance. Previously, this abovementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes could be very pricey to utilize and not always a practical or time-efficient choice.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers biggest drawback: since the boom raises or extends when the machine is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat unbalanced, even with the counterweights on the back. This translates to the lifting capacity decreasing fast as the working radius increases. The working radius is the distance between the front of the wheels and the center of the load.
Like for example, a vehicle which has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted might be able to safely lift just as heavy as 400 lb. when it is fully extended with a low boom angle. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity that has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company within Horley, Surrey, England initially pioneered telehandlers. These machinery were developed from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front section. This placed the cab of the driver on the machine's back portion, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has ever since become more popular.