The History of Invention of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st conveyable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition may 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 in use 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 might be the 1st machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a transportable 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 giant electrical lamp at every end of the car. The machine is intended 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 harsh weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much more close resemblance to current day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which contains an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electrical lamps at the higher end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is light and compact enough to be easily transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to ensure stability in gusty winds.
This is kind of a big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent principally forms the basis of most modern day lighting towers which contain similar elements like 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 a solution to provide more in depth illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a framework 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 electric 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 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 manufactured by lighting tower makers. Though the overall design has sundry little from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements have been made to make lighting towers simpler 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 frame 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 exploiting extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is becoming a more and more prevalent concern.
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