The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st cartable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad definition could 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 up to date 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 might be the first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a movable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a chassis with 4 wheels at each corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one giant electrical lamp at each end of the vehicle. The machine is meant to be used to provide on-demand lighting of alternative landing sites at airfields on occasions when the main landing areas are out of use due to harsh weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much closer resemblance to modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a cartable lighting tower composed of a base frame ( which contains an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electrical lamps at the upper end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is light and compact enough to be easily transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to ensure stability in high winds.
This is reasonably a significant development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the foundation of most present day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as a base that stores the engine and generator together with an extending hydraulic mast that supports the luminaries.
The next patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for an answer to provide more extensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and 2 folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the chassis that each hold a cluster of electrical lamps. The design also allows for the masts to be revolved enabling finer control over the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over nearly all sides of the machine. This is not like previous light towers which generally offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been made by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the overall design has varied small from those seen in the 1980s many improvements 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 permits the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible frame design which allows just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower in addition has damaged new ground by using extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is very timely seeing as global warming is becoming a more and more plentiful concern.
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