The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machinery that is popular in both the agriculture and construction businesses. These machines 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 that could extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator can connect many attachments on the end of the boom. Some of the most popular attachments comprise: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
To be able to transport loads through locations that are normally unreachable for a typical forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most common attachment. Like for instance, telehandlers can move cargo to and from locations that are not typically accessible by conventional forklift units. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from within a trailer and position these loads in high locations, such as on rooftops for example. Previously, this situation mentioned above would need a crane. Cranes could be pricey to utilize and not always a practical or time-efficient alternative.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their largest limitation: 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, 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 center of the load and the front of the wheels.
Once it is fully extended with a low boom angle for example, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, while a retracted boom could support weights up to 5000 lb. The same unit with a 5000 pound 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 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 rear part of the equipment, 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.