The History of Creation of Conveyable Lighting Tower
Who invented the first portable lighting tower?
This depends largely on your definition of a lighting tower. A broad definition may include something as easy as a candle or primitive torch placed on a tall mast to cast light over a big area, such a device has likely been used 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 indicates 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 ( allowing the machine to be towed ), a generator powered by an engine and one massive electrical lamp at each 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 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 resemblance to modern day lighting towers.
The US patent 4181929 describes a cartable lighting tower composed from a base frame ( which has an engine and generator ) and a vertical, extending, hydraulic mast with two electric lamps at the upper 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 ensure stability in high winds.
This is quite a big development in the history of the lighting tower as this patent largely forms the foundation of most modern 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 an answer to provide more extensive illumination. The US patent 4220981 describes a chassis 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 electric 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 not like prior light towers which sometimes offer illumination on just one side of the machine.
Since 1980 considerable progress has been manufactured by lighting tower manufacturers. Although the final design has sundry little from those seen in the 1980s many improvements have been made to make lighting towers simpler to use and more ecologically 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 permits just about any generator to be used to power the light heads.
The TCP Ecolite lighting tower has also broken new ground by exploiting highly cheap lamps to reduce fuel consumption dramatically, which is particularly timely seeing as global warming is becoming 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 the good wife season 1 episode 15 or kitchen nightmares season 3 episode 5 meantime.