A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machine which is well-known in the construction and agriculture industries. These machinery are similar in appearance and function to a lift truck or a forklift but are really more like a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler offers increased versatility of a single telescopic boom that could extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator has the ability to attach a lot of attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most common attachments include: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
In order to transport cargo through places that are usually not reachable for a standard forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment. Like for example, telehandlers can move loads to and from areas that are not typically reachable by conventional forklift units. These devices could also remove palletized cargo from inside a trailer and position these loads in high locations, like on rooftops for instance. Previously, this abovementioned situation would need 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: since the boom extends or raises when the machinery is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unbalanced, even with the counterweights on the rear. This translates to the lifting capacity decreasing fast as the working radius increases. The working radius is the distance between the front of the wheels and the center of the load.
For instance, a vehicle that has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted might be able to safely raise only as much as 400 pounds when it is completely extended with a low boom angle. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity that has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as heavy as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England originally pioneered the telehandler within Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machinery 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 rear portion of the machine, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab situated on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more famous.