The History of Creation of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st conveyable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition might include something as simple as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over an enormous 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 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 1st 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 ( 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 airports on occasions when the main landing areas are out of use due to adverse weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much closer similarity to modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a cartable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which contains an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with 2 electrical lamps at the higher 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 ensure stability in gusty winds.
This is quite a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the foundation 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 next 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 chassis 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 revolved 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 unlike prior light towers which often offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Although the final design has varied tiny from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements have been made to make lighting towers better 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 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 highly cost-effective lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is especially timely seeing as global warming is starting to become a more and more prevalent concern.
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Tags: lighting, lighting tower