Tripod dollies with pneumatic tyres?

[Grug]

Hey guys and girls,

I'm looking for something fairly specific here. A heavy duty tripod dolly, compatible with Miller HD sticks, but with larger pneumatic tyres that will work outdoors and in a range of environments.

I want it to be able to function like a normal tripod dolly, but I'd also like to be able to pair it with my little Ronin-S gimbal. Mounting the gimbal on top of the tripod head to stabilise quick and nasty dolly moves that I make with the dolly in whatever random environment I encounter.

I've been getting remarkably usable results from simply mounting the Ronin-S (or sometimes a Ronin 2) on my Inovativ cart, and pushing that around. It's a nice, cheap and easy path to get (surprisingly often) usable dolly shots, when I don't have a dolly grip or proper crew around me.

However, pushing a large camera cart around is not a particularly nimble process. And having to pull most of the gear off the cart to do so, is equally painful. So I'd like to give it a try with a tripod dolly - which will give me some degree of height adjustability, and a considerably more elegant rig to push around.

Miller make their 480 Studio Dolly, which is well made (as it should be for the price!) but it just has regular caster wheels on it, which are no good off a perfect studio floor.

Does anyone know of some good pneumatic options that would be compatible with the Miller sticks?

Or any good alternatives for achieving the same sort of thing?

I'm really just looking for something with a reasonably wide wheel base, beefy pneumatic tyres (with brakes), and the ability to adjust the height at which I mount the gimbal.

Cheers

 

[rob norton]

What about a Kessler K-pod with all-terrain wheels? I've got this set up to use with a jib. I think it'd be cool to modify the wheels even further to take the really large tyres you see on shotbag trolleys.

 

[Grug]

What about a Kessler K-pod with all-terrain wheels? I've got this set up to use with a jib. I think it'd be cool to modify the wheels even further to take the really large tyres you see on shotbag trolleys.

Great idea! Thanks Rob. Looks pretty close to what I'm trying to achieve.

 

[rob norton]

You’re still at the mercy of the tripod’s footprint. It won’t be absorbing bumps on a footpath/you still can’t just wheel through grass but I guess that’s the whole point of a human walking with a gimbal.. or a drone!

One thing to keep in mind is there’s a certain amount of wobble until the tripod has enough weight (this is why I was toying with the idea of some larger swivel tyres, then just pushing around a movi pro). It’s obviously designed to help transport a loaded jib rather than smoothly move it. I’d check one out in person if possible. It still seems like a much better option than manfrotto’s equivalent.

What about a rock n roller multicart? Or what if you mounted the tripod head to a two wheel hand truck type trolley so that when it’s tilted as you wheel it, the tripod head/gimbal are vertical?

 

[morgan_moore]

It would seem to me that a device is needed where the wheels are an easy swap - either tyres or something that will run on track like 'matthews hot buttons'

 

[Grug]

You’re still at the mercy of the tripod’s footprint. It won’t be absorbing bumps on a footpath/you still can’t just wheel through grass but I guess that’s the whole point of a human walking with a gimbal.. or a drone!

One thing to keep in mind is there’s a certain amount of wobble until the tripod has enough weight (this is why I was toying with the idea of some larger swivel tyres, then just pushing around a movi pro). It’s obviously designed to help transport a loaded jib rather than smoothly move it. I’d check one out in person if possible. It still seems like a much better option than manfrotto’s equivalent.

What about a rock n roller multicart? Or what if you mounted the tripod head to a two wheel hand truck type trolley so that when it’s tilted as you wheel it, the tripod head/gimbal are vertical?

Yeah, my biggest question would be the rigidness without a solide spreader down low.

A two-wheel hand truck (with beefy tyres) could possibly work. It's keeping the camera height level that seems to be most important to getting a really dolly-like gimbal move. However, I'd worry about being able to pan/tilt/control the gimbal whilst also dealing with keeping the hand truck where it needs to be.

It would seem to me that a device is needed where the wheels are an easy swap - either tyres or something that will run on track like 'matthews hot buttons'

I don't really need it to be convertible to an actual dolly as such. When I need a dolly (and have the crew for one) I just use the real thing. This just needs to be solid and smooth enough (ideally with a bit of isolation damping) that I can wheel it around on carpet, floorboards, cement, concrete or other passably flat surfaces (where such a shitty rig solution still offers some chance of success).

I'm wondering if the simplest solution might simply be to build one myself. Find the nicest, smoothest, fattest, off-the-shelf pneumatic castor wheels that money can buy. Two rigid, two swivelling. Fit them to some steel or solid wood plate. And either screw a proper Miller ground spreader into that (for using my regular tripods), or build some kind of post-based system that'll be height adjustable.

 

[rob norton]

I'm wondering if the simplest solution might simply be to build one myself. Find the nicest, smoothest, fattest, off-the-shelf pneumatic castor wheels that money can buy. Two rigid, two swivelling. Fit them to some steel or solid wood plate. And either screw a proper Miller ground spreader into that (for using my regular tripods), or build some kind of post-based system that'll be height adjustable.

The RnR has two rigid, two swivel tyres. You could probably replace the rigid wheels with larger ones easily (easy because tyre diameter is unimportant as it won't get in the way of anything). Then you'd just need to figure out how to add the swivel ones.

Completely from scratch sounds good too, although I imagine it'd be a pretty heavy beast, which is probably a positive as long as it's not so heavy it'll throw your back out when pulling it out of the van.

 

[morgan_moore]

This may sound potty.. but could you use a 2 wheel scooter!

As for buying pnumatic wheels.. weve checked that out quite a lot and many industrial weels have poor bearings.. scooter or kids bmx wheels seem to offer better value and have more available spares.