The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty equipment which is well-known within both the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are rather 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 that could extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator can connect lots of attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most common attachments consist of: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler usually utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment in order to transport cargo through locations which are usually unreachable for a standard forklift. Like for example, telehandlers could transport loads to and from locations that are not usually accessible by regular forklift models. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from within a trailer and place these loads in high places, such as on rooftops for instance. Previously, this situation mentioned above will require a crane. Cranes can be expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
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 somewhat unbalanced, despite the rear counterweights. This translates to the lifting capacity decreasing fast as the working radius increases. The working radius is the distance between the center of the load and the front of the wheels.
For instance, a vehicle that has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted might be able to safely lift only as much as 400 pounds once it is completely extended with a low boom angle. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity that has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company in Horley, Surrey, England first pioneered telehandlers. These equipment were developed from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This positioned the cab of the driver on the rear portion of the equipment, like in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab situated on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more popular.