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01/16/2010 08:12:00 AM · #1 |
Curious about the idea of building my own slide rails or track system.
My brain tells me that the best thing to use for a DIY method would be a disassembled rollerblade with the middle two wheels removed for smoothness built into a foot attachment for a tripod or something similar.
Another option might be to use PVC pipes, perhaps cut in half or perhaps mounted directly to a 2x4.
Just thinking about ways to play around to make some cheap gear really. I have trouble justifying buying a couple sets of wheels and some metal pipes for 800 bucks.
Wheels might cause troubles though, so I was also thinking about using straight metal pipe and just using a smooth slider, like a paper cutter.
The real trick is probably going to be controlling the speed and smoothness of the slide....
Any good links out there for making your own roller/track/slider systems? |
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01/16/2010 09:36:13 AM · #2 |
| A thought worth building on. The track a come-along at the hardware store, firm while pulled tight but should still absorb vibration. Movement could be a modified cheep young child̢۪s RC motorcycle. |
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01/16/2010 10:20:56 AM · #3 |
Can you give us a link or a photo of the commercial version?
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01/16/2010 02:16:29 PM · #4 |
Originally posted by MelonMusketeer:
Can you give us a link or a photo of the commercial version? |
This is a very popular system: GlideTrack
One of my buddies is talking with a local company who makes a similar system (even uses the same rails as GlideTrack) for far less $.
I'll update here once he receives & tests the unit. |
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01/16/2010 02:31:22 PM · #5 |
Here's a DIY that I've been drooling over.
Custom made from aluminum, and driven by a mumford stepper motor: //i39.tinypic.com/qreuwy.jpg |
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01/16/2010 09:35:53 PM · #6 |
If you want one the size of the one in the first images, go to a big hardware or cabinet place, and have a look at all the different drawer glides. Sliding glass doors have a good roller wheel system with them as well. A couple of pieces of angle iron, and the rolling hardware from a sliding glass door may do what you want. I feel that the trick is going to be getting the rails parallel.
A good cordless drill may be able to power a cable and pulley system for motion. Another way to get even motion would be a set up with a weight on a cable or a spring, and an air paddle wheel attached to one of the pulleys to govern the speed. For a spring rig, the rope recoil from a small gas engine might work nicely with a couple of pulleys to get more travel distance.
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01/16/2010 10:15:43 PM · #7 |
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01/17/2010 09:00:00 AM · #8 |
been looking into this more. That glidetrack looks pretty cool, but holy crap, it's like 300 bucks for a tiny bit of molded alu and plastic. I'd pay 30 bucks for that, but I'll pass on the 900% overpricing.
Found some great links, but I think the best is this guy's stuff.
His toys are great!
The requirements for a dolly like this seem to revolve around 2 factors. #1 - dolly/track system #2 - movement control.
Honestly, movement control could probably be managed somewhat passably by a hand... until you get slow. And my feeling is that slow is always better than fast.
Like Melon says though, a weight and a paddle wheel might be good, but whatever it is, it is going to have to be QUIET! I'm curious to see if there are any cheap publicly available motor systems like the mumford stepper motor in Roba's example. I don't know of any here.
I spent around 3 hours in hardware stores around here today and found an awful lot of disappointing goodies.
Dolly methods appear to come in 3 flavors.
1 - 1 top wheel
2 - 2 aligned wheels 90 degrees from each other
3 - wheel-less friction slider (for light rigs)
For the top wheel, sliding glass door wheels seem good and what I found usually featured decent quality bearings. The drawback was not very smooth brass runners with nice bearings or low quality plastic with no bearings, but smooth rolling surfaces. Another drawback was the depth of the runner which makes it very impractical for a curved track. Using brass on PVC is going to cause problems very quickly, so it would also be restricted to using angle-iron or similar tracks. Probably well-suited towards a short distance tripod mounted or tripod to tripod slider with a rigid linear track.
For aligned 90 degree wheels, there are a few things to pay attention to. How big are the wheels? Do they have good quality bearings? Are they strong enough to hold up if you make a riding dolly? Are the wheels rubberized? If they grab the track too well, they can easily come off the track or cause jumping as they ride up and slip. On the other hand, a well thought out wheel setup like this can easily handle straight and curved track.
It can also handle track of varying widths, in case you come across a setup requiring thicker tubing (IE over gaps). PVC works very, very well for this type and according to the guy in the link above, can be purchased in flexible types such as PEX. I can't find that anywhere here though. Still, I might be able to make it work with one type of flexible hose that I found.
The advantage of a roller that works well on PVC is that PVC is cheap, light, and can be mated quite easily using an internal tube, as in his vid.
For wheel-less friction sliders, you need very smooth surfaces to slide on (chromed tubing is great). A bit of PVC cut down the middle can cup on nicely. Line it with a bit of thick oil paper and you will have a tremendously smooth result. I will probably build something like this for a tripod to tripod side-glide system.
One other thing I was thinking about that seems to me might be a wise addition is a retention system. I was thinking that a steel cable wrapped around the top of the tripod legs and attached to the dolly roller would be a great precaution and stabilizer.
Message edited by author 2010-01-17 09:04:08. |
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