A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machine which is popular in the construction and agriculture businesses. These machinery are similar in appearance and function to a lift truck or a forklift but are really more similar to 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 can connect many attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most popular attachments comprise: a bucket, a muck grab, a lift table or pallet forks.
In order to transport cargo through areas that are normally unreachable for a conventional forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment. Like for instance, telehandlers can transport loads to and from areas which are not usually reachable by regular forklift models. These devices could also remove palletized loads from within a trailer and place these loads in high areas, like on rooftops for example. Before, this aforementioned situation would require a crane. Cranes could be really pricey to use and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their biggest drawback: 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 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 front of the wheels and the center of the load.
Once it is fully extended with a low boom angle for example, the telehandler would just have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 lb. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity that has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 pounds 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 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab situated on the side has ever since become more famous.