A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machine that is well-known within the construction and agriculture industries. These machinery are similar in appearance and function to a lift truck or a forklift but are really more like a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom which could extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach lots of attachments on the end of the boom. Some of the most common attachments consist of: 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 areas that are usually unreachable for a standard forklift. Like for instance, telehandlers could move loads to and from locations that are not typically reachable by conventional forklift models. These devices could also remove palletized cargo from within a trailer and place these loads in high locations, such as on rooftops for example. Before, this situation mentioned above will require a crane. Cranes could be very expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient choice.
Another advantage is also the telehandlers largest limitation: since the boom raises or extends when the machine is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unbalanced, even with 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.
For instance, a vehicle that has a 5000 lb. capacity with the boom retracted may be able to safely raise just as much as 400 lb. when it is fully extended with a low boom angle. The same unit with a 5000 pound lift capacity which has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
England originally pioneered the telehandler in Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machines from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This placed the driver's cab on the equipment's back part, like in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab located on the side has ever since become more and more famous.