The History of Invention of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st cartable lighting tower?
This depends mostly on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition might include something as easy as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over a large 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 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 1st machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a movable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a framework with 4 wheels at every corner ( allowing 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 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 recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much closer similarity to current day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with 2 electric 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 strong winds.
This is kind of a big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the root 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 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 framework that each hold a cluster of electrical lamps. The design also permits for the masts to be revolved enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about all sides of the machine. This is unlike previous light towers which sometimes offer illumination on just one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the overall design has sundry tiny from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers better to use and more environmentally friendly.
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 chassis design which permits virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally broken new ground by using extremely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, 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 white collar season 1 episode 13 or medium season 6 episode 15 meantime.