A telehandler or a telescopic handler is a machine which is well-known within the construction and agriculture industries. These machines are similar in function and appearance to a forklift or a lift truck but are really more like a crane instead of a forklift. 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 connect a lot of attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most popular attachments include: a bucket, a muck grab, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler normally uses pallet forks as their most common attachment to be able to transport cargo through areas which are usually not reachable for a typical forklift. For example, telehandlers are able to move cargo to and from areas that are not typically reachable by regular forklift units. These devices can also remove palletized loads from in a trailer and place these loads in high locations, like on rooftops for example. Before, this abovementioned situation will require a crane. Cranes can be expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient choice.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their largest drawback: because the boom raises or extends when the machinery is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat unbalanced, even with the rear counterweights. 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 would only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whereas a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 lb. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity which has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England initially pioneered the telehandler in Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machinery from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front section. This positioned the driver's cab on the rear portion of the equipment, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has since become increasingly more popular.