The telescopic handler or just telehandler is a heavy duty machine that is well-known within both the construction and agriculture industries. These machinery are quite similar in both function and appearance to the lift truck, except it more closely resembles a crane. The telehandler offers improved versatility of a single telescopic boom which can extend upwards and forwards from the vehicle. The operator could attach many attachments on the boom's end. Some of the most common attachments include: a muck grab, a bucket, pallet forks or a lift table.
A telehandler typically uses pallet forks as their most popular attachment to be able to move loads through places which are usually unreachable for a standard forklift. Like for instance, telehandlers could transport loads to and from places that are not typically accessible by conventional forklift units. These devices also have the ability to remove palletized loads from inside a trailer and place these loads in high areas, like on rooftops for instance. Before, this situation mentioned above would require a crane. Cranes can be expensive to use and not always a practical or time-efficient option.
Telehandler's are unique in that their advantage is also their biggest limitation: because the boom extends or raises when the machine is bearing a load, it also acts as a lever and causes the vehicle to become quite unstable, despite the counterweights on the rear. This translates to the lifting capacity decreasing quickly as the working radius increases. The working radius is the distance between the front of the wheels and the center of the load.
Like for instance, a vehicle which has a 5000 pound capacity with the boom retracted may be able to safely raise only as heavy as 400 lb. when it is completely extended with a low boom angle. The same model with a 5000 lb. lift capacity which has the boom retracted might be able to easily support as much as 10,000 lb. with the boom raised up to 70.
England first pioneered the telehandler in Horley, Surrey. The Matbro Company developed these machines from their articulated cross country forestry forklifts. Initially, they had a centrally mounted boom design on the front portion. This positioned the cab of the driver on the rear part of the equipment, like in the Teleram 40 model. The rigid chassis design with the cab located on the side and a rear mounted boom has since become more popular.