The telehandler or telescopic handler is a heavy duty equipment that is popular within both the agriculture and construction businesses. These machines are quite similar in both appearance and function to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom which could extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator has the ability to attach numerous attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most common attachments include: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
A telehandler typically utilizes pallet forks as their most popular attachment in order to transport loads through places which are usually unreachable for a typical forklift. For example, telehandlers could transport cargo to and from places which are not usually reachable by standard forklift units. These devices can also remove palletized loads from inside a trailer and place these loads in high locations, like on rooftops for example. Before, this situation mentioned above would require a crane. Cranes could be expensive to utilize and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their largest limitation: as the boom raises or extends when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unstable, even with the counterweights on the back. 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.
For example, a vehicle that has a 5000 lb. capacity with the boom retracted may be able to safely lift just as much as 400 lb. when it is fully extended with a low boom angle. The same unit with a 5000 pound lift capacity which has the boom retracted may 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 originally 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 section. This placed the driver's cab on the machine's rear portion, like in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has since become increasingly more famous.