The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first cartable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad 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 likely been used since the Stone Age.
In more recent 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 first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a Portable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a frame with four wheels at every corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one giant electrical lamp at each end of the auto. The machine is meant 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 harsh weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much more close similarity to current day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a conveyable lighting tower composed of a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with 2 electrical lamps at the higher end. The unit doesn’t permit towing but instead is light 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 reasonably a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the foundation of most modern 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 subsequent patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for a solution to provide more extensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis with 4 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 permits for the masts to be revolved enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over virtually every side of the machine. This is not like prior light towers which generally offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Although the overall design has varied tiny from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements 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 framework design which permits just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower in addition has broken new ground by using extremely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is very timely seeing as global warming is starting to become a more and more common concern.
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