The History of Creation of Cartable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first conveyable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad 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 doubtless 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 suggests 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 Portable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a framework with 4 wheels at every corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one massive electrical lamp at each end of the auto. The machine is designed 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 more close resemblance to present day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a cartable 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 upper end. The unit does not 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 high winds.
This is quite a big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent principally forms the basis of most current 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 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 2 folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the framework 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 two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over nearly every side of the machine. This is unlike previous light towers which generally offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower makers. Although the final design has sundry small from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements have been made to make lighting towers better 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 framework design which permits almost any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also broken new ground by exploiting extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is starting to become a more and more common concern.
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