The telehandler or telescopic handler is a heavy duty machinery that is popular within both the agriculture and construction businesses. These machinery are rather similar in both function and appearance to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler provides improved versatility of a single telescopic boom that could extend upwards as well as forwards from the vehicle. The operator has the ability to attach many attachments on the end of the boom. Several of the most common attachments include: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler normally uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment to be able to transport cargo through areas that are normally unreachable for a standard forklift. For instance, telehandlers can move cargo to and from places which are not normally accessible by regular forklift models. These devices could also remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and place these loads in high locations, such as on rooftops for instance. Before, this abovementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes could be really pricey to use 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 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 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, while a retracted boom can support weights as much as 5000 lb. The same unit with a 5000 lb. lift capacity which has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as much as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company in Horley, Surrey, England first pioneered telehandlers. These machines were developed from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This placed the driver's cab on the rear portion of the equipment, like in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab located on the side has since become increasingly more popular.