The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machine which is popular in both the agriculture and construction industries. These machines are quite 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 which can extend forwards as well as upwards from the vehicle. The operator can connect numerous 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.
In order to move cargo through places that are usually not reachable for a standard forklift. The telehandler utilizes pallet forks as their most popular attachment. For example, telehandlers could move cargo to and from locations that are not normally 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 locations, such as on rooftops for instance. Previously, this aforementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes can be very pricey to utilize and not always a practical or time-efficient alternative.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their biggest limitation: 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 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 example, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 pounds. The same model with a 5000 pound lift capacity which has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England first pioneered the telehandler within Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machines from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This placed the driver's cab on the back part of the machine, like in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has ever since become increasingly more famous.