The telehandler or telescopic handler is a heavy duty machinery which is popular within both the construction and agriculture businesses. These machines 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 as well as forwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach different kinds of attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most popular attachments comprise: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler normally utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment in order to transport cargo through areas that are usually not reachable for a standard forklift. Like for instance, telehandlers are able to transport loads to and from locations which are not typically accessible by regular forklift units. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and place these loads in high places, like on rooftops for example. Previously, this situation mentioned above will require a crane. Cranes could be really expensive to use and not always a time-efficient or practical option.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers largest drawback: since the boom extends or raises when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unstable, even with 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 center of the load and the front of the wheels.
Once it is fully extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler would only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whereas a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 pounds. 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 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
England initially pioneered the telehandler within Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machinery from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This placed the cab of the driver on the rear part of the machine, as in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has ever since become more famous.