The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first conveyable lighting tower?
This depends principally on your definition of a lighting tower. An extensive definition may include something as easy as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over an enormous 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 could 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 framework with 4 wheels at each corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one large electrical lamp at each end of the auto. 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 because of adverse weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much closer similarity to present day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a cartable 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 higher end. The unit does not permit towing but instead is lightweight and compact enough to be easily transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to guarantee stability in strong winds.
This is reasonably a big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent principally forms the root of most modern 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 extensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a frame with four wheels to hold the generator and engine and two folding telescopic masts at opposite corners of the frame 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 virtually every side of the machine. This is unlike prior light towers which generally offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 substantial progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Though the overall design has varied small 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 permits almost any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower in addition has damaged new ground by exploiting extremely cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is starting to become 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 criminal minds season 5 episode 16 or survivor: heroes vs villains season 20 episode 4 meantime.