The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty equipment which is popular within both the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are quite similar in both appearance and function to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers increased versatility of a single telescopic boom which can extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator could attach numerous attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most common attachments comprise: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler usually utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment to be able to move loads through locations that are normally not reachable for a standard forklift. For instance, telehandlers are able to move cargo to and from locations which are not normally accessible by conventional forklift models. These devices could also remove palletized loads from in a trailer and place these loads in high places, such as on rooftops for example. Previously, this aforementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes can be really expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient choice.
Another advantage is also the telehandlers biggest limitation: 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 quite unstable, despite the counterweights on the rear. 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.
For instance, a vehicle that has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted might be able to safely raise just 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 might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company in Horley, Surrey, England originally 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 section. This positioned the cab of the driver on the rear portion of the machine, like in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab located on the side has since become more and more famous.