The History of Invention of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first portable lighting tower?
This depends mostly on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition could 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 doubtless 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 movable floodlighting unit for airfields.
The patent describes a chassis with four wheels at every corner ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one giant electrical lamp at every end of the car. 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 harsh weather conditions.
More lately in 1980 a US patent 4181929 was filed for a Portable illuminating tower that illustrates a much nearer resemblance to modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a cartable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which contains 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 light and compact enough to be simply transported. The design also includes jack legs that are now common place on all lighting towers to guarantee stability in gusty winds.
This is reasonably a serious development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent mostly forms the foundation of most present day lighting towers which contain similar elements like a base that stores the engine and generator 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 intensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a frame with 4 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 allows for the masts to be rotated enabling finer control of the area of illumination. By offering 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over nearly all sides of the machine. This isn’t like prior light towers which sometimes offer illumination on only one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been made by lighting tower manufacturers. Although 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 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 framework design which allows virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also broken new ground by exploiting intensely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption seriously, which is especially timely seeing as global warming is beginning to become a more and more prevalent concern.
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