The History of Invention of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st portable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition may 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 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 first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a Portable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a framework with four wheels at every corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at each end of the vehicle. The machine is intended 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 because of adverse weather conditions.
More recently in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much more close resemblance to present day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which contains an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with 2 electrical 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 gusty winds.
This is kind of a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the basis of most present 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 an answer to provide more intensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and 2 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 rotated enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about all sides of the machine. This isn’t like prior light towers which generally offer illumination on just one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the final 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 chassis design which permits virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also broken new ground by using highly cost-effective lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is very timely seeing as global warming is starting to become a more and more plentiful 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 csi: ny season 6 episode 16 or the mentalist season 2 episode 15 meantime.