A telehandler or a telescopic handler is a machine that is popular within the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are similar in function and appearance to a lift truck or a forklift but are really more like a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler provides improved versatility of a single telescopic boom which could extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator could connect various types of attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most common attachments include: a bucket, a muck grab, a lift table or pallet forks.
A telehandler usually utilizes pallet forks as their most common attachment to be able to move loads through places which are usually not reachable for a standard forklift. For instance, telehandlers can transport loads to and from places that are not typically accessible by standard forklift models. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and place these loads in high places, such as on rooftops for instance. Previously, this aforementioned situation will require a crane. Cranes could be really pricey to use and not always a time-efficient or practical option.
One more advantage is also the telehandlers largest drawback: since 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, even with 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.
Once it is completely extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler would only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom could support weights up to 5000 lb. The same model with a 5000 pound lift capacity which has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England initially pioneered the telehandler in 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 positioned the driver's cab on the equipment's back part, 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 more famous.