The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first portable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad definition might include something as simple as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over an enormous area, such a device has doubtless been in use since the Stone Age.
In more current 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 4 wheels at each corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at each end of the vehicle. 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 resemblance to modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower composed of a base frame ( which contains an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electric lamps at the higher end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is lightweight 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 gusty winds.
This is reasonably a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the basis of most present day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as a base that stores the engine and generator together with an extending hydraulic mast that supports the luminaries.
The next 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 chassis with four 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 over the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about every side of the machine. This is not like previous light towers which sometimes offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Though the final design has varied small from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers easier to use and more ecologically 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 allows just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally broken new ground by using highly cost-effective lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is very timely seeing as global warming is starting to become a more and more plentiful concern.
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