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. A broad definition could include something as simple as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over a large area, such a device has likely been in use 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 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 four wheels at each corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at each end of the car. 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 because of harsh weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much closer similarity to current day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower composed from 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 doesn’t permit towing but instead is lightweight and compact enough to be easily transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to guarantee stability in high winds.
This is quite a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the basis of most present day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as a base that stores the engine and generator 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 intensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a frame with 4 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 revolved enabling finer control of 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 not like previous light towers which generally offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the overall design has varied little from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements have been made to make lighting towers simpler to use and more environmentally friendly.
The Hylite lighting tower from Taylor Construction Plant includes Adjustabeam technology which allows the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible frame design which allows almost any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also damaged new ground by using extremely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is especially timely seeing as global warming is starting to become a more and more plentiful concern.
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Tags: lighting, lighting tower