The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machinery which is well-known within both the construction and agriculture industries. These machinery are quite similar in both function and appearance to the forklift, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom that could extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach various types of attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most popular attachments consist of: a bucket, a muck grab, a lift table or pallet forks.
In order to move loads through locations which are usually unreachable for a conventional forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment. Like for instance, telehandlers are able to transport loads to and from places which are not normally reachable by standard forklift units. These devices could also remove palletized loads from within a trailer and position these loads in high places, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this situation mentioned above would need a crane. Cranes could be expensive to utilize and not always a practical or time-efficient alternative.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers biggest drawback: since the boom raises or extends when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat unstable, despite the rear counterweights. This translates to the lifting capacity decreasing quickly as the working radius increases. The working radius is the distance between the front of the wheels and the center of the load.
When it is completely extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whereas a retracted boom could support weights up to 5000 lb. The same unit with a 5000 pound lift capacity that has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company in Horley, Surrey, England first 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 placed the driver's cab on the back part of the machine, like 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 popular.