The History of Invention of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st conveyable lighting tower?
This depends principally 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 a big area, such a device has probably 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 first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a transportable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a framework with four wheels at each corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one massive electrical lamp at every end of the car. 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 inclement 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 cartable lighting tower consisting of a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electrical lamps at the higher 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 guarantee stability in strong winds.
This is reasonably a big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the basis of most present day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as a base that stores the engine and generator together 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 a solution to provide more in depth illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and 2 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 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about every side of the machine. This is not like previous light towers which sometimes offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower makers. Though the final design has sundry small 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 framework design which allows virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also 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 prevalent 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 white collar season 1 episode 13 or parks and recreation season 2 episode 17 meantime.
Tags: lighting, lighting tower