The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st cartable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition could include something as straightforward 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 recent 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 Portable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a frame with four wheels at every corner ( allowing 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 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 because of harsh 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 modern 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 electric lamps at the upper 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 guarantee stability in high winds.
This is reasonably a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely 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 subsequent 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 frame with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and two 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 of the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over virtually every side of the machine. This is not like previous light towers which generally offer illumination on just one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower makers. Though the final design has varied tiny from those seen in the 1980s many improvements 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 allows virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally broken new ground by exploiting intensely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is beginning to become a more and more prevalent concern.
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