A telescopic handler or telehandler is a machine that is well-known in the agriculture and construction businesses. These equipment are similar in appearance and function to a forklift or a lift truck but are really more like a crane instead of a forklift. The telehandler provides improved versatility of a single telescopic boom that could extend forwards and upwards from the vehicle. The operator could connect many attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most popular attachments consist of: a bucket, a muck grab, a lift table or pallet forks.
A telehandler usually utilizes pallet forks as their most popular attachment in order to move cargo through areas which are usually not reachable for a standard forklift. For example, telehandlers are able to move loads to and from areas that are not typically reachable by regular forklift units. These devices can also remove palletized cargo from inside a trailer and place these loads in high places, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this situation mentioned above would need a crane. Cranes can be expensive to utilize and not always a time-efficient or practical choice.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their biggest drawback: since the boom extends or raises when the equipment is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become somewhat unstable, even with 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.
For instance, a vehicle that has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted may be able to safely lift only as much as 400 lb. when it is completely extended with a low boom angle. The same unit with a 5000 lb. lift capacity which has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 lb. 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. At first, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front section. This placed the cab of the driver on the equipment's back part, as in the Teleram 40 unit. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more popular.