A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machinery that is well-known within the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are similar in appearance and function to a lift truck or a forklift but are really more similar to a crane instead of a forklift. The telehandler provides increased versatility of a single telescopic boom which can extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator could connect many attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most popular attachments include: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
To be able to transport cargo through places which are usually unreachable for a standard forklift. The telehandler utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment. For example, telehandlers are able to move cargo to and from locations that are not usually accessible by regular forklift units. These devices could also remove palletized loads from in a trailer and place these loads in high places, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this abovementioned situation will need a crane. Cranes could be very pricey to utilize 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 machinery is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat 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 center of the load and the front of the wheels.
Like for instance, a vehicle that has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted might be able to safely raise only as much as 400 pounds once it is completely extended with a low boom angle. The same model with a 5000 pound lift capacity that has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
England originally pioneered the telehandler within Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these equipment 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 equipment's back portion, like 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 more popular.