The History of Creation of Cartable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first cartable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. An extensive definition could include something as easy as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over an enormous area, such a device has probably been used 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 suggests 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 movable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a chassis with four wheels at each corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one massive 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 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 more close resemblance to current day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower composed of a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with 2 electrical lamps at the upper end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is light 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 high winds.
This is kind of a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the basis of most modern day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as a base that stores the engine and generator along 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 extensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a frame 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 electric lamps. The design also permits for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over nearly all sides of the machine. This isn’t like previous light towers which often offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been made by lighting tower manufacturers. Although the overall design has varied little from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers simpler to use and more environmentally 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 chassis design which allows virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally damaged new ground by utilising highly cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, 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 psych season 4 episode 15 or parks and recreation season 2 episode 17 meantime.
Tags: lighting, lighting tower