The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the 1st cartable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad definition could include something as simple 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 could be the first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a transportable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a framework with 4 wheels at every corner ( permitting the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one giant 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 inclement weather conditions.
More lately 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 of 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 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 high winds.
This is quite a significant development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the basis 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 next 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 4 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 over the area of illumination. By offering two masts the light tower also allows for illumination over nearly all sides of the machine. This is unlike prior light towers which generally offer illumination on just one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been made by lighting tower makers. Though the overall design has sundry little from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers better to use and more green.
The Hylite lighting tower from Taylor Construction Plant includes Adjustabeam technology which allows the user to adjust the direction of each lamp from the ground. The TCP Hylite also has a flexible framework design which allows almost any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also damaged new ground by exploiting extremely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption significantly, which is very timely seeing as global warming is beginning 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: miami season 8 episode 16 or ghost whisperer season 5 episode 15 meantime.