The telehandler or telescopic handler is a heavy duty equipment that is well-known in both the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are quite similar in both function and appearance to the forklift, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler provides increased versatility of a single telescopic boom which could extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach many attachments on the end of the boom. Several of the most common attachments include: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
To be able to move cargo through locations that are usually unreachable for a conventional forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment. Like for example, telehandlers are able to transport cargo to and from areas which are not usually accessible by regular forklift models. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized loads from inside a trailer and place these loads in high locations, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this abovementioned situation will need a crane. Cranes could be pricey to utilize and not always a practical or time-efficient choice.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their largest limitation: as the boom raises or extends when the machinery 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 center of the load and the front of the wheels.
Once it is completely extended with a low boom angle for example, the telehandler would only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whereas a retracted boom could support weights as much as 5000 pounds. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity that has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as much as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England first pioneered the telehandler within 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 driver's cab on the machinery's back portion, 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 more popular.