RigWheels – Smooth Rollers for your DIY’s

• • 34 Comments

RigWheels are some clever new items targeting the DIY audience. Although they run a bit high in price for most, the ability to quickly and easily move them from one project to another makes them quite appealing. You can literally mount them with a single bolt, and a clamp knob or wing nut.

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Check out the video above for just a few ideas of what you can do with a set of smooth mini rollers, and the video below which takes you through an entire DIY project crafting a full track tripod dolly. Beats drilling angle iron, that's for sure.

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 34 Comments





34 thoughts on “RigWheels – Smooth Rollers for your DIY’s”

  1. amos holmes

    We bought a set to try out, they seemed to be a reasonable solution. The wheels have a tendency to slide and not roll, which tends to mean they are a rig sledge, not a rig wheel. Manufacturer has said they will loosen. Ease of use is good, but think i would build something that rolls next time

  2.

    i found an alternative. Very similar in style, but slightly larger (I think)

    The Stanley Pocket Door hardware comes with a pair of wheels for about $10.
    Model #STA-BP150N-41
    Place online has them new, called Hardware Hut.

    I found a bunch at my local parts surplus store for $2.50 each. Then spent another $7 on hardware (bolts, washers, wing nuts). Here's a video on how i made the whole set up, parts list included.
    https://youtu.be/UJIs8BOEV4g

    Stanley also makes a track for these to run in: STA-BP250-01-96
    Aluminum. No idea how it would work in a slider application.

  3. Greg Greenhaw

    I purchased 6 rig wheels and they are pretty noisy and rough. Only 2 of the four wheels even roll on a flat surface the other 2 dont even touch. I will most likely return them

  4.

    I can't understand why some of you guys are bitching about the cost of the RigWheels. After pay a couple of thousand for a camera, this price is well worth it. You have to remember, the most critical issue with a slider is smoothness. You can buy cheaper wheels but you'll end up with a piece of crap for a slider. I bought a set and they are very well made, nice a solid, heavy and smooth. Just what you want for this type of application.
    One other issue that I just don't under stand. I have seen a lot of DIY sliders on the net. I wouldn't be catch dead showing a client one of those. When we show up to shoot something we want to look professional, the last thing I want to do is pull out some wooden skateboard gismo and start shooting with it.

  6. Bob

    The wheels are great but I have been waiting for 6 weeks for the track. Six weeks for a piece of metal?

  10.

    I retired from 27 years as a building and remodeling contractor last week. Pocket door wheelsight work out well for a slider, but only if they are heavy duty with ball bearings! I always threw out the standard crappy ones that came in most pocket door track packages, and had my local lumber yard supply the high quality BB rollers (Lowes can special order them too.) All types of picket door hanging wheels have quirky connectors to hang doors from, which will take some skill to adapt for sturdily hanging a camera supporting mount from. I hadn't thought of trying them, but will next week.

  11. Debo

    dn 80 replacement wheels are $11 each - so you should be able to get a set for about 44 bucks + shipping. They are drop shipped from Mexico.

  13. Tim

    Ok, to be fair, the wheels work much better now that I got that heavy grease out of them. They roll smooth. Works great on my long stone kitchen countertop. I am working on a rail system and think I will have good results too. I will have to give it a thumbs up. Tim

  14. Tim

    Ok, mine arrived today. I say save your money. First off impression, they do not roll smooth like the demonstration video. As a matter of fact, they do not turn freely without a great deal of weight on them. All 4 trucks have that same issue. They just drag across the smooth table. I have mine mounted in the same fashion as the demo video on 15mm carbon fiber rails. I will try a track of PVC later today to see if that is better. They appear to be packed with grease since these are really nothing more than closet door wheels. I suppose they would need to be greased with all that weight hanging on them. I may need to use a spray a lubricant in the bearings to loosen them up. I will keep working with them to see if I can improve. BTW, the wheel material is a hard plastic, not like a rollerblade wheel material. As a side note, I hope they work since I like the idea.

  18. Tim

    Ok, I bit the bullet and ordered a set, call me crazy. So first, not very responsive, then they are out of stock. They said they get them from Peru. It has been over a week now and the tracking website still shows them in Peru. Guess I will see if they make it and are worth the very expensive cost. I wanted to give a word of warning to those that might want them now. If I had known they did not have them in stock, I would not have ordered them. BTW, they are on ebay as well.

  19. Max

    the same for me, i can't find any website who sell to customer only to construction or architecture companies.

  22. Robert Campbell

    @Kelly,

    The specs say each rig can support 50 pounds, so I suppose if you put together a six-rig dolly...

  25. Jarrett

    They just look like the wheel assembly out of a sliding door track, I'm sure there would be architectual / commercial based versions out there better made and alot cheaper for DIY.

  27. Robert Campbell

    Hey Everyone,

    I thought I'd post a response I got from the RigWheels guy about the versatility and noise.

    Just want to point out that I DON'T know him, and have no affiliation with him, but I do think that while these might be a bit pricey, I also think they have a lot of potential, e.g., the guy who turned a Flycam Nano base plate into a spider trax dolly, using 15 bucks of PVC pipe to create a tripod dolly, etc.

    MY QUESTIONS:
    I saw your product on Nextwave, and sent an e-mail to Emm at Cheesycam.com to talk it up. The big stumbling block is the price, but the other questions seem to be about sound.

    I think it shows great promise, but I too am curious as to how loud the wheels would be in the track when doing a slow dolly, or tracking shot for narrative work. It seemed really loud when you pushed the rig quickly, but with a slow push...?

    Also, I would love to see a set-up where you have, say, a three-foot slider assembled from the box track (and connectors and whatnot).

    it seems to me that 200 bucks or so would get you 4 rigwheels, maybe three feet of box track, some connectors, and some sort of plate for the camera, and voila, an inexpensive slider, that can also turn into a low-rolling spider-dolly, a vertical slider, etc.

    Would go a long way towards easing doubts.

    AND HIS RESPONSE:

    Hi Robert,

    Sound largely depends on the materials used, the harder/thicker the material the less the noise. The box track does make noise but I would not be afraid to use it to achieve movement during interviews etc (I was a sound engineer for many years) If it was a very quiet room with a soft spoken person then Box Track may not be the best choice. I have not tried it yet but I believe putting Dynamat on the track would definitely improve performance. For very quiet operation you would want to use thicker materials like steel pipe.

    Here is a prototype setup that I am working on.
    [photo not enclosed]

    Using RigWheels like this is very multi-purpose. The pipe that it is sitting on is 12' aluminum and in this example it is quieter while moving slowly than my old store-purchased friction slider. The other thing about the wheels is, the sound that they do produce is a lower frequency than friction sliders making it less noticeable in your recording. Only 4 RigWheels are needed to build the above example for use in a flat linear motion. The bottom carriage would be added to use vertically or in any other non-flat manner. Flexibility is the benefit of RigWheels. In the above picture I effectively have a tabletop dolly and a 12' slider for the price of a 8x8" piece of wood and two aluminum pipes (and the RigWheels of course).

    The connections to a tripod etc can vary greatly depending on how complicated you want to get. The simplest is just to drill some holes through the track/pipe and bolt them to a piece of wood/metal. If I were construction one for myself I would take my pipe/track to a metal shop and have them quickly weld a metal plate on the ends to have a solid tripod connection.

    I am hoping to offer a pipe mounting kit/bracket sometime in the future but I have to find some free time first:)

    LMK if that helps. I'd be glad to answer any follow up questions.

    Again, I don't have any connection to the guy, just thought the product looks cool.

  30.

    pretty cool. I seriously thinking about picking up a set. It seems to have great versatility.
    when the guy demos the box rail slider it seems quite a bit loud but I don't know how you would go about damping the sound for that.

  32.

    Great concept. Too high of a price. I'm pretty sure these won't sell well due to the fact that the $38 single wheel could probably be DIY-ed for about $3.

    Now for someone smarter (Emm?) who knows the parts for something like this.....

  33.

    Really appealing product. I've made pretty much that exact pipe dolly using inline skate wheels, but this looks more graceful. More interesting to me, it seems like you could make a pretty awesome slider in about 5 minutes using these.

  34. Jonathan

    Honestly liked the simplicity of the wheels but the price is too high, I will be sticking with finding some old roller blade wheels to make mine.

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