The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first portable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad definition might 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 likely been in use since the Stone Age.
In more recent 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 might be the 1st machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a Portable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a chassis with 4 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 vehicle. 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 inclement weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much nearer resemblance to current 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 2 electric lamps at the higher end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is light 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 gusty 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 such as a base that stores the engine and generator along 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 in depth illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a framework with four 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 over the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about all sides of the machine. This isn’t like prior light towers which often offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Although the overall design has sundry small from those seen in the 1980s many enhancements 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 allows almost any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower in addition has broken new ground by utilising highly economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is especially timely seeing as global warming is beginning to become a more and more prevalent concern.
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