The History of Invention of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st portable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. An extensive definition could 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 in use 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 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 frame with 4 wheels at every corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one massive electrical lamp at each end of the car. 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 due to harsh weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much more close similarity to current day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower consisting of 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 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 mostly forms the root of most present day lighting towers which contain similar elements like a base that stores the engine and generator together 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 a solution to provide more extensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a frame with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and two folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the framework that each hold a cluster of electric lamps. The design also permits for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control over the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over virtually every side of the machine. This is unlike prior light towers which generally offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Although the overall design has sundry 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 allows the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible chassis design which permits just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally broken new ground by utilising intensely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is particularly 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 ghost hunters season 6 episode 1 or la ink season 3 episode 16 meantime.
Tags: lighting, lighting tower