Motorized Camera Slider

This modular and motorized camera slider was made to solve the following issues in the video recording industry; firstly, many modular camera sliders are expensive and bulky, which puts them out of the hands of most small film makers. Secondly, modular camera sliders are scarce even in the age of the internet and online shopping, the ones that do exist are limited in their customizability, which reduces their ability to capture intermediate to advanced camera shots, and thus are not up to the standards of many small film makers.

Given these issues affect almost all small film makers but are not sufficiently addressed, a prototype camera slider was developed to combat these issues, bringing both affordability and customizability to the current market of camera sliders. This prototype camera slider is modular, with each tracking being able to connect to one another, and is fully motorized which allows the operator to place the camera at set positions along the track, pan the camera and its movement along the track directly, and speed up or slow down the rate of motion on the camera moving along the tracks.

The assembly is made of two major components, the modular camera slider tracks (sometimes referred to as slider tracks) and the motorized camera slider plate upon which any camera with an industry standard ¼-20 UNC thread can be mounted on.

The camera slider tracks are made from a lightweight yet incredibly durable 6061-T651 aluminum alloy. This allows the tracks to be extremely portable, which gives the operator a large degree of flexibility when it comes to selecting what kind of shot they want to capture by allowing them to carry multiple track variations, without much additional equipment or reserved space for the camera slider assembly. Each track can be mounted on tripods that support industry standard ¼-20 UNC threads or with the included leveling feet which raise the track up to 40 mm off the ground. Each track can connect to one another using the 304 stainless steel connecting plates and Allen key fasteners, this provides the tracks with a great deal of rigidity between one another, ensuring video motion stays smooth and consistent along all parts of the camera slider assembly.

The next major component of the camera slider assembly is the camera slider plate, which is sometimes referred to just as a “slider plate”. The camera slider plate is a custom designed part which is 3D printed using the cutting-edge carbon fiber PLA 3D printing filament. This plate was specially designed for the motorized camera slider’s tracks and compliments the lightweight tracks by providing an exceptional amount of rigidity and low weight for its size, further increasing the portability of the assembly. There are two layers of which the plate is made of an upper layer where a camera fitting a ¼-20 UNC thread can rest upon and pan using an included controller, as well as a lower layer that houses two belted-stepper motors for ultra-smooth movement of the slider plate along the tracks, which can be controlled by the operator using an included controller that also controls the pan functions of the camera slider plate.