The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machine which is well-known within both the construction and agriculture businesses. These machines are rather similar in both function and appearance to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom which can extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator has the ability to attach various types of attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most common attachments comprise: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
In order to transport loads through locations which are usually not reachable for a conventional forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most common attachment. Like for instance, telehandlers can move cargo to and from locations that are not normally accessible by conventional forklift units. These devices could also remove palletized loads from within a trailer and position these loads in high places, such as on rooftops for instance. Before, this aforementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes can be expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers biggest drawback: because 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, 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 fully extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom could support weights up to 5000 pounds. The same model with a 5000 pound lift capacity which has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company within 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 placed the driver's cab on the machine's rear part, like in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has since become increasingly more famous.