A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machinery which is well-known in the construction and agriculture businesses. These machines are similar in appearance and function to a forklift or a lift truck but are really more similar to a crane rather than a forklift. The telehandler provides increased versatility of a single telescopic boom that can extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator has the ability to attach many attachments on the boom's end. Several of the most common attachments include: a bucket, a muck grab, a lift table or pallet forks.
To be able to move cargo through locations that are usually unreachable for a typical forklift. The telehandler uses pallet forks as their most common attachment. For instance, telehandlers are able to transport loads to and from areas which are not usually accessible by regular forklift models. These devices could also remove palletized cargo from in a trailer and place these loads in high locations, such as on rooftops for instance. Before, this situation mentioned above would need a crane. Cranes can be expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient alternative.
Another advantage is also the telehandlers largest drawback: because the boom extends or raises when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unbalanced, despite 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 lift just as much as 400 pounds when it is fully extended with a low boom angle. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity which has the boom retracted may be able to easily support as much as 10,000 pounds with the boom raised up to 70.
England first pioneered the telehandler in Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machines from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This positioned the driver's cab on the back portion of the machine, as in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more popular.