The History of Creation of Portable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first portable lighting tower?
This depends mostly on your definition of a lighting tower. A detailed definition might include something as straightforward as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over a large area, such a device has doubtless been used 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 first machine of its kind filed in US patent 1934576 and is named as a transportable floodlighting unit for airports.
The patent describes a frame with four 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 auto. The machine is designed to be used to provide on-demand lighting of alternative landing sites at airports on occasions when the main landing areas are out of use due to 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 modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a portable lighting tower consisting of a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electrical lamps at the upper 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 strong winds.
This is quite a significant development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the root of most current day lighting towers which contain similar elements such as a base that stores the engine and generator together 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 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 chassis 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 2 masts the light tower also allows for illumination over just about all sides of the machine. This is not like previous light towers which generally offer illumination on only 1 side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower makers. Although the final design has varied small from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers better to use and more ecologically friendly.
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 virtually any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also broken new ground by using extremely economical lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is beginning 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 law and order: special victims unit season 11 episode 13 or ghost whisperer season 5 episode 15 meantime.