The History of Creation of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first conveyable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. An extensive definition could include something as straightforward as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over a large area, such a device has likely 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 reveals 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 airfields.
The patent describes a framework with four wheels at every corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at every end of the vehicle. The machine is designed 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 because of 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 present day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a conveyable lighting tower composed from 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 ensure stability in strong winds.
This is reasonably a big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the foundation of most modern day lighting towers which contain similar elements like 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 a solution 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 electric lamps. The design also permits 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 nearly every side 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. Although the overall design has varied small from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements have been made to make lighting towers easier 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 frame 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 using extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is very timely seeing as global warming is beginning to become 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 parenthood season 1 episode 1 or the mentalist season 2 episode 15 meantime.
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