The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machinery which is well-known within both the agriculture and construction businesses. These machinery are quite similar in both appearance and function to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom that could extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator has the ability to connect many attachments on the end of the boom. Some of the most common attachments consist of: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
In order to transport cargo through places that are usually not reachable for a typical forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most common attachment. Like for example, telehandlers can move loads to and from locations that are not normally reachable by regular forklift units. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and position these loads in high areas, like on rooftops for instance. Previously, this aforementioned situation will require a crane. Cranes can be really pricey to use and not always a time-efficient or practical option.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers largest limitation: because the boom raises or extends when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat unbalanced, even with the rear counterweights. This translates to the lifting capacity decreasing quickly as the working radius increases. The working radius is the distance between the front of the wheels and the center of the load.
When it is completely extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, while a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 lb. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity that has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
England originally pioneered the telehandler in Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these equipment from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front section. This positioned the driver's cab on the back part of the equipment, as in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has since become increasingly more popular.