The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st cartable lighting tower?
This depends mostly on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition might include something as easy as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over an enormous area, such a device has doubtless been used since the Stone Age.
In more current history it’s un-clear as to when the modern lighting tower was invented. Researching patent applications indicates 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 movable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a framework with four wheels at every corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one giant electrical lamp at every end of the car. The machine is intended to be used to provide on-demand lighting of alternative landing sites at airports on occasions when the main landing areas are out of use because of adverse weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much more close similarity to current 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 upper end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is lightweight and compact enough to be easily 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 big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the root of most present day lighting towers which contain similar elements like a base that stores the engine and generator along 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 in depth illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis with 4 wheels to hold the generator and engine and two folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the framework that each hold a cluster of electric lamps. The design also allows for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering 2 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 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the final design has sundry little from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements have been made to make lighting towers better to use and more green.
The Hylite lighting tower from Taylor Construction Plant includes Adjustabeam technology which allows the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible chassis design which allows just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also broken new ground by utilising extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is especially timely seeing as global warming is beginning to become a more and more plentiful concern.
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