The History of Invention of Cartable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st conveyable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad definition could include something as easy 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 current history it’s un-clear as to when the modern lighting tower was invented. Researching patent applications suggests that machines not dissimilar to today’s lighting towers were being designed in the 1930s.
A patent from 1932 shows what could be the 1st machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a transportable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a frame 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 car. 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 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 modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower consisting of a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electric lamps at the upper end. The unit doesn’t permit towing but instead is light and compact enough to be easily transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to ensure stability in high winds.
This is quite a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the foundation of most current 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 following patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for an answer to provide more extensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and two folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the chassis that each hold a cluster of electric lamps. The design also allows for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over virtually every side of the machine. This is not like previous light towers which sometimes offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower makers. Though the overall design has varied small from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers simpler 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 permits almost any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has additionally broken new ground by using intensely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is becoming 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 private practice season 3 episode 16 meantime.
Tags: lighting, lighting tower