Ppot brain trust, help building a camera dolly?

[slakjaw]

I want to build a Motorized camera dolly for doing time lapse. The stage zero Dolly's are very expensive in the 1500 to 3000 range. Forget that I'll just build my own.

I was thinking about using an 8' piece of uni-strut and running all-thread in the channel. I could drive the all-thread with a motor. Then weld a bracket to a nut and attach the camera to that bracket and spin the all-thread for camera motion.

I dunno... What do you guys think?

[stomachmonkey]

Sounds reasonable.

[Bob Kontak]

I don't know jack about this stuff but the stage zero dolly platform looks to be a precision piece. If you do not need a perfect plane for the camera to move upon you may be in good shape.

There may be other options vs the uni-strut that will cost a little more but will add precision. Could you splice two of these beam levels together for a more precise travel? There has to be aluminum bar stock out there that is machined for a reasonable price.

Amazon.com: IRWIN Strait-Line 2035105 72-Inch Box Beam Level: Home Improvement