The History of Creation of Cartable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st conveyable 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 doubtless been used since the Stone Age.
In more current history it’s un-clear as to when the modern lighting tower was invented. Researching patent applications indicates 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 chassis with 4 wheels at every 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 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 adverse weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much nearer resemblance to current day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a conveyable lighting tower composed of a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with 2 electric lamps at the upper end. The unit doesn’t 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 ensure stability in strong winds.
This is reasonably a significant 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 such as 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 intensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a framework with 4 wheels to hold the generator and engine and two 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 over the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over virtually all sides of the machine. This is unlike prior light towers which generally offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the overall design has sundry small from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements 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 permits the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible chassis design which permits virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also broken new ground by using extremely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is very timely seeing as global warming is becoming a more and more common 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 criminal minds season 5 episode 16 or amazing race season 16 episode 4 meantime.
Tags: lighting, lighting tower