The History of Creation of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first cartable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition could include something as easy as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over a big area, such a device has doubtless been in use since the Stone Age.
In more current history it’s un-clear as to when the modern lighting tower was invented. Researching patent applications reveals that machines not dissimilar to today’s lighting towers were being designed in the 1930s.
A patent from 1932 shows what could be the 1st machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a transportable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a chassis with four wheels at each corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one giant electrical lamp at each end of the auto. The machine is intended to be used to provide on-demand lighting of alternative landing sites at airfields on occasions when the main landing areas are out of use due to inclement weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much nearer similarity to present day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electric lamps at the higher end. The unit doesn’t permit towing but instead is light and compact enough to be simply transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to guarantee stability in gusty winds.
This is quite a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent principally forms the root of most current day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as a base that stores the engine and generator together with an extending hydraulic mast that supports the luminaries.
The subsequent patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for a solution to provide more intensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a framework with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and 2 folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the chassis that each hold a cluster of electrical lamps. The design also allows for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about every side of the machine. This is not like prior light towers which often offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower makers. Although the overall design has varied little from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers better to use and more environmentally friendly.
The Hylite lighting tower from Taylor Construction Plant includes Adjustabeam technology which permits the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible frame design which permits just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower in addition has broken new ground by utilising extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is especially timely seeing as global warming is beginning to become a more and more common concern.
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