The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first portable lighting tower?
This depends mostly 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 a big area, such a device has doubtless been in use 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 could be the first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a Portable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a chassis with four wheels at every corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one massive electrical lamp at every end of the vehicle. The machine is meant 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 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 cartable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which contains an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electrical 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 high winds.
This is reasonably a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent principally 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 subsequent patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for an answer to provide more in depth illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and two folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the frame that each hold a cluster of electric 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 nearly all sides of the machine. This isn’t like previous light towers which generally offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Though the overall design has sundry tiny from those seen in the 1980s many improvements 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 allows the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible chassis design which allows just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally damaged new ground by utilising intensely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is becoming a more and more common concern.
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