A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machinery that is well-known within the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are similar in function and appearance to a lift truck or a forklift but are really more similar to a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler provides increased versatility of a single telescopic boom which can extend forwards as well as upwards from the vehicle. The operator could connect various kinds of attachments on the end of the boom. Several of the most common attachments comprise: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
To be able to transport cargo through areas which are normally not reachable for a conventional forklift. The telehandler utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment. For instance, telehandlers are able to transport loads to and from locations which are not typically reachable by regular forklift units. These devices can also remove palletized loads from within a trailer and position these loads in high locations, such as on rooftops for instance. Previously, this aforementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes could be expensive to utilize and not always a time-efficient or practical choice.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their biggest drawback: because 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 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 completely extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, while a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 pounds. The same unit with a 5000 lb. 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 section. This positioned the cab of the driver on the machine's back portion, like in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has ever since become more and more popular.