The telehandler or telescopic handler is a heavy duty machine that is well-known within both the agriculture and construction industries. These equipment are rather 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 numerous attachments on the end of the boom. Several of the most popular attachments comprise: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler normally utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment to be able to move loads through places which are normally not reachable for a conventional forklift. For instance, telehandlers are able to transport cargo to and from places that are not usually reachable by regular forklift units. These devices can also remove palletized cargo from inside a trailer and place these loads in high locations, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this aforementioned situation will need a crane. Cranes can be pricey to use and not always a time-efficient or practical choice.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their largest limitation: because the boom extends or raises when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat unbalanced, even with 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.
Like for instance, a vehicle which has a 5000 lb. capacity with the boom retracted may be able to safely raise only as heavy as 400 lb. once it is completely extended with a low boom angle. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity which has the boom retracted might 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 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 machine's rear part, like in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has ever since become increasingly more popular.