The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machinery which is well-known in both the construction and agriculture industries. These equipment are quite similar in both appearance and function to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler provides increased versatility of a single telescopic boom which can extend upwards as well as forwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach many attachments on the end of the boom. Some of the most common attachments consist of: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
In order to transport loads through locations that are normally not reachable for a typical forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment. Like for example, telehandlers are able to transport loads to and from places which are not typically reachable by regular forklift models. These devices can also remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and place these loads in high locations, like on rooftops for instance. Previously, this aforementioned situation will require a crane. Cranes could be pricey to utilize and not always a practical or time-efficient alternative.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their largest drawback: as the boom extends or raises when the equipment 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.
When it is completely extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler would just have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 pounds. 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 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company within Horley, Surrey, England first 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 back portion, like in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more famous.