Cinema Camera Slider (Heavy Duty)

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

This design is specifically made for large cinema cameras like the Red Epic and Black Magic (of course smaller cameras will work as well).
The legs are for leveling the track for low level ground filming.
The carriage will also be able to be removed from the straight track and mounted on an arch shaped rigid plastic track for filming people in interviews and similar operations.
It is motorized with a 200:1 gear ratio with an electronic speed control. I have a motorized pan and tilt system with very slow to fast moving axis on pan and tilt, all of which are very smooth (I've already built the pan and tilt system and it works great) I will mount the motorized pan and tilt to this setup when needed.

I've also made a motorized turntable to use with a tripod mounted camera for filming products from small figurines up to fairly large chairs and coffee tables

This model isn't an exact working model. I just needed to make sure all of the parts will work without binding and to make sure the load can be distributed as needed. I ordered the off the shelf parts from ServoCity yesterday. The remaining parts will be machined out of 6061 Aluminum (in my machine shop).

Rather than the cap screws that are shown in the model for adjusting the legs, I will be using wing bolts for quick adjustment.

I hope this design will help others out that are going for pro filming gear.
The cost of parts and machining comes out to around $525.00 total.

Sorry about the floating screw above the slider, it was not supposed to show up in the model, I hid it in CAD but I guess I should have deleted it :-)

Update: This now a completed project. I am very pleased with the results with one exception, while at a steep incline of about 45 degrees while on the track, one drive wheel doesn't produce enough traction so I had to design an "add on" part to engage the idle wheel on the drive axle, probably better referred to as a manual differential lock. (refer to the added photos in CAD form).
I've also added some photos of the finished project while sitting on my messy work table :-)

I haven't tried it with a large cinema camera yet but I'm sure it will work just fine as I did add weight to simulate the weight of an Epic Red (I don't own one....YET) :-)

Check out the test footage.

I will be filming in another state next week so hopefully I'll get the chance to put it to the real test and see if it does all I need it to do.

Meanwhile, I need to get used to using it! Practice, practice, practice.....and more practice! Lol

Thanks for looking!