The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machine which is well-known within both the construction and agriculture industries. These machinery are rather similar in both function and appearance to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler provides increased versatility of a single telescopic boom that can extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator could attach numerous attachments on the end of the boom. Some of the most popular attachments comprise: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
To be able to move cargo through places that are normally unreachable for a standard forklift. The telehandler utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment. For example, telehandlers can transport loads to and from places which are not usually reachable by conventional forklift models. These devices can also remove palletized cargo from inside a trailer and position these loads in high places, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this abovementioned situation will need a crane. Cranes could be expensive to use and not always a time-efficient or practical option.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers biggest drawback: because the boom extends or raises when the machine is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unbalanced, despite the counterweights on the rear. 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.
Once it is fully extended with a low boom angle for example, the telehandler would just have a 400 pound weight capacity, while a retracted boom could support weights as much as 5000 lb. The same model with a 5000 pound lift capacity which has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 lb. 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. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This positioned the cab of the driver on the back portion of the equipment, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has ever since become more famous.