The History of Creation of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st cartable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. An extensive definition may 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 likely 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 airports.
The patent describes a frame with 4 wheels at every corner ( permitting 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 lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much more close resemblance to modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a cartable lighting tower consisting of a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electrical lamps at the higher end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is lightweight and compact enough to be simply transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to guarantee stability in strong winds.
This is quite a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent principally 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 following 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 framework with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and 2 folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the frame that each hold a cluster of electric lamps. The design also permits 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 just about all sides of the machine. This is unlike previous light towers which often offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been made by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the overall design has sundry little from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers simpler to use and more ecologically friendly.
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 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 using highly 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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