A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machinery which is popular in the construction and agriculture businesses. These machinery are similar in function and appearance to a forklift or a lift truck but are actually more similar to a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler provides increased versatility of a single telescopic boom which could extend forwards as well as upwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach various kinds of attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most popular attachments consist of: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
A telehandler normally utilizes pallet forks as their most popular attachment in order to move cargo through locations which are usually not reachable for a conventional forklift. Like for instance, telehandlers could transport loads to and from places that are not normally reachable by standard forklift models. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from inside a trailer and place these loads in high areas, such as on rooftops for instance. Before, this situation mentioned above will need a crane. Cranes can be really pricey to utilize and not always a time-efficient or practical alternative.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers biggest limitation: because the boom extends or raises when the machinery is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat unbalanced, despite 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 center of the load and the front of the wheels.
When it is completely extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler will just have a 400 pound weight capacity, while a retracted boom can support weights as much as 5000 pounds. 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 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company in Horley, Surrey, England initially 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 back portion of the equipment, like in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab situated on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more famous.