A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machinery that is popular in the construction and agriculture industries. These machinery are similar in appearance and function to a forklift or a lift truck but are actually more like a crane instead of a forklift. The telehandler offers increased versatility of a single telescopic boom that can extend upwards as well as forwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach numerous attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most popular attachments include: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
In order to transport cargo through places that are usually unreachable for a conventional forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most common attachment. For example, telehandlers could transport cargo to and from locations that are not typically reachable by regular forklift units. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and position these loads in high places, like on rooftops for example. Previously, this situation mentioned above would need a crane. Cranes can be expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
Another advantage is also the telehandlers biggest limitation: as 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 unstable, despite the rear counterweights. This translates to the lifting capacity decreasing quickly as the working radius increases. The working radius is the distance between the center of the load and the front of the wheels.
When it is fully extended with a low boom angle for example, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom could support weights as much as 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 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
England initially pioneered the telehandler within Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machines from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front section. This placed the cab of the driver on the machinery's back portion, like in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab located on the side has ever since become increasingly more famous.