The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machine that is popular within both the construction and agriculture businesses. These machines 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 could extend upwards as well as forwards from the vehicle. The operator can connect numerous attachments on the end of the boom. Several of the most popular attachments include: a bucket, a muck grab, a lift table or pallet forks.
A telehandler usually uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment in order to move cargo through locations that are normally unreachable for a typical forklift. For instance, telehandlers could transport cargo to and from places which are not normally reachable by standard forklift models. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from inside a trailer and position these loads in high areas, like on rooftops for example. Before, this abovementioned situation will require a crane. Cranes could be very pricey to use and not always a time-efficient or practical option.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers largest limitation: since 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, 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.
Once it is fully extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler would only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom could support weights up to 5000 lb. The same unit with a 5000 lb. 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 in Horley, Surrey, England first pioneered telehandlers. These machines were developed from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This placed the driver's cab on the equipment's rear part, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab situated on the side and a rear mounted boom has ever since become more and more popular.