A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machinery which is popular within the construction and agriculture industries. These machines are similar in function and appearance to a forklift or a lift truck but are actually more like a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler provides improved versatility of a single telescopic boom which could extend forwards as well as upwards from the vehicle. The operator could attach many attachments on the end of the boom. Several of the most popular attachments comprise: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
A telehandler typically uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment in order to move cargo through locations which are normally unreachable for a typical forklift. Like for example, telehandlers can move loads to and from areas which are not normally accessible by standard forklift units. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from within a trailer and position these loads in high locations, such as on rooftops for example. Previously, this situation mentioned above will require a crane. Cranes could be really expensive to use and not always a time-efficient or practical choice.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their largest drawback: because 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 unbalanced, even with 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.
Once it is fully extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler would just have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom can support weights up to 5000 lb. The same unit with a 5000 pound lift capacity that has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
The Matbro Company in Horley, Surrey, England initially pioneered telehandlers. These machinery were developed from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front section. This positioned the driver's cab on the rear portion of the machine, like in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more popular.