The History of Invention of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st portable lighting tower?
This depends mostly on your definition of a lighting tower. An extensive definition may include something as straightforward as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over an enormous area, such a device has likely been used since the Stone Age.
In more recent 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 movable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a frame with 4 wheels at each corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one giant electrical lamp at every end of the auto. The machine is intended 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 due to inclement weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much closer resemblance 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 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 strong winds.
This is kind of a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly 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 next patent was filed later on in the same year of 1980 but was for an answer to provide more in depth illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a framework with 4 wheels to hold the generator and engine and 2 folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the chassis that each hold a cluster of electric lamps. The design also permits for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over virtually every side of the machine. This isn’t like prior light towers which generally offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Although the overall design has sundry little 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 frame design which permits virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower in addition has broken new ground by exploiting highly cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is especially 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 shear genius season 3 episode 5 or big love season 4 episode 9 meantime.
Tags: lighting, lighting tower