The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty equipment that is popular in both the construction and agriculture businesses. These equipment are rather similar in both appearance and function to the forklift, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers increased versatility of a single telescopic boom which can extend upwards as well as forwards from the vehicle. The operator has the ability to attach various kinds of attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most popular attachments include: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler normally uses pallet forks as their most common attachment to be able to transport loads through areas which are usually unreachable for a conventional forklift. Like for example, telehandlers are able to transport loads to and from locations that are not normally reachable by regular forklift units. These devices can also remove palletized loads from inside a trailer and place these loads in high areas, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this aforementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes can be very expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their 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, despite the rear counterweights. 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.
Like for example, a vehicle that has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted might be able to safely lift only as heavy as 400 lb. when it is fully extended with a low boom angle. The same unit with a 5000 lb. lift capacity which has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company within Horley, Surrey, England originally pioneered telehandlers. These equipment were developed from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This positioned the cab of the driver on the rear part of the machinery, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has ever since become increasingly more popular.