The History of Creation of Cartable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first conveyable lighting tower?
This depends mostly on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition could include something as easy as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over a big area, such a device has probably 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 suggests 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 Portable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a framework with four wheels at every corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at every end of the vehicle. 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 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 has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electric lamps at the upper 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 ensure stability in high winds.
This is kind of a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent principally forms the root of most modern day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as 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 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 electric 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 prior light towers which sometimes offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Although the final design has varied tiny from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers easier to use and more environmentally 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 framework design which allows virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower in addition has broken new ground by exploiting intensely cost-effective 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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