The History of Creation of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st cartable lighting tower?
This depends mostly 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 could 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 each corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at every end of the auto. The machine is intended 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 due to harsh weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much nearer similarity to current 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 2 electric lamps at the higher end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is lightweight 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 gusty winds.
This is reasonably a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the root 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 an answer to provide more intensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a frame with 4 wheels to hold the generator and engine and 2 folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the frame that each hold a cluster of electrical lamps. The design also allows for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control of 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 previous light towers which sometimes offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Although the final design has sundry tiny 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 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 in addition has broken new ground by exploiting highly cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is very timely seeing as global warming is becoming a more and more plentiful concern.
There’s a lot of information on this topic online, so you can get more of it if you want, and you can watch grey’s anatomy season 6 episode 16 or amazing race season 16 episode 4 meantime.
Tags: lighting, lighting tower