A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machine which is well-known in the agriculture and construction businesses. These equipment are similar in function and appearance to a forklift or a lift truck but are really more like a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom that can extend forwards as well as upwards from the vehicle. The operator could connect various types of attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most common attachments consist of: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
In order to move loads through areas that are usually unreachable for a standard forklift. The telehandler utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment. Like for instance, telehandlers could transport cargo to and from areas that are not normally reachable by regular forklift models. These devices could also remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and place these loads in high areas, such as on rooftops for instance. Before, this situation mentioned above will require a crane. Cranes can be really pricey to use and not always a time-efficient or practical 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 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 center of the load and the front of the wheels.
Like for example, a vehicle which has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted might be able to safely lift only as much as 400 lb. once it is fully extended with a low boom angle. The same unit with a 5000 pound lift capacity that has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England first pioneered the telehandler in Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machinery from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front section. This positioned the cab of the driver on the rear part of the machinery, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab situated on the side and a rear mounted boom has ever since become more famous.