The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machine which is well-known in both the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are rather similar in both function and appearance to the forklift, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler provides improved versatility of a single telescopic boom which could extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator could connect various types of attachments on the end of the boom. Some of the most common attachments consist of: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
A telehandler usually utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment to be able to move cargo through places that are usually unreachable for a conventional forklift. For instance, telehandlers could transport loads to and from locations that are not normally accessible by conventional forklift units. These devices can also remove palletized cargo from within a trailer and position these loads in high locations, such as on rooftops for example. Before, this aforementioned situation will require a crane. Cranes could be really pricey to use and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
Another advantage is also the telehandlers biggest drawback: as 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 unstable, 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 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, whilst a retracted boom can support weights as much as 5000 lb. The same model with a 5000 pound lift capacity that has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England initially pioneered the telehandler within Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these equipment from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This placed the cab of the driver on the rear portion of the machine, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become increasingly more famous.