The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st conveyable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition could include something as straightforward as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over an enormous 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 movable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a chassis with four wheels at every corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at every end of the auto. 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 harsh weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much nearer similarity to modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a conveyable 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 upper end. The unit doesn’t 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 strong winds.
This is kind of a significant development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the basis of most present 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 next patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for an answer to provide more intensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a framework 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 of the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about every side of the machine. This is not like prior light towers which often offer illumination on just one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Though the overall design has sundry small from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers easier to use and more green.
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 framework design which allows virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally broken new ground by utilising highly cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is very timely seeing as global warming is becoming a more and more plentiful 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 grey’s anatomy season 6 episode 16 or parks and recreation season 2 episode 17 meantime.
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