The History of Creation of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first cartable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. An extensive 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 up to date history it’s un-clear as to when the modern lighting tower was invented. Researching patent applications reveals that machines not dissimilar to today’s lighting towers were being designed in the 1930s.
A patent from 1932 shows what could be the first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a Portable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a chassis with four wheels at each corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at every end of the auto. 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 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 present day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower consisting of a base frame ( which contains an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electric 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 ensure stability in strong winds.
This is kind of a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the basis of most current 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 following patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for an answer to provide more in depth illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a frame with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and two folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the frame that each hold a cluster of electrical lamps. The design also allows for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control over the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over virtually every side of the machine. This is unlike prior light towers which generally offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the final design has sundry small from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers better 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 permits virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally broken new ground by utilising extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is becoming a more and more prevalent concern.
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Tags: lighting, lighting tower