The telehandler or telescopic handler is a heavy duty machine that is well-known in both the agriculture and construction industries. These machinery are quite similar in both function and appearance to the forklift, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers increased versatility of a single telescopic boom that could extend forwards as well as upwards from the vehicle. The operator can attach various types of attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most popular attachments consist of: a muck grab, a bucket, a lift table or pallet forks.
In order to move loads through places which are usually not reachable for a conventional forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment. Like for instance, telehandlers can move loads to and from places that are not normally accessible by standard forklift models. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and position these loads in high areas, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this aforementioned situation would need a crane. Cranes can be pricey to use and not always a practical or time-efficient alternative.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their biggest drawback: since the boom raises or extends when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unstable, despite the rear counterweights. 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.
When it is completely extended with a low boom angle for instance, the telehandler will only have a 400 pound weight capacity, whilst a retracted boom can support weights as much as 5000 lb. The same unit with a 5000 pound 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.
The Matbro Company within Horley, Surrey, England initially pioneered telehandlers. These equipment were developed 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 rear portion, as in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with a rear mounted boom and the cab located on the side has since become increasingly more famous.