I'm going to give this(link below) build a try mainly because I can't afford real ones. If anyone else has seen any other good DIY build ideas for these let me know here. Once I get it built I will post my results!

http://www.indymogul.com/backyardfx/episode/BFX_20100705/build-a-diy-slider-for-20-backyard-fx

A friend of mine built this a couple months ago with great results.

I've been meaning to built one ever since.

It's a great product for the $20 and hour or so you put into it

So I actually made the ones in the video and it only cost me about $14 instead of their $20 so that's nice. It's works pretty great, as good as a $14 Slider can be. I had to put some extra screw to hold down the PVC pipe so the camera wouldn't move near the middle. I also made mine longer then theirs...probably about 5 foot long. I will post a video soon!

So here is the video that I made. I only shot for about 30 minutes so I didn't focus on being perfect. I noticed after wards that a few shots came out a bit shaky. I think there are 2 reasons for this happening. 1. Friction of the wood I think plays a big factor in this. Although it slides pretty smooth most times, I could notice a bit of resistance. 2. User error! I don't have a tripod head to put on it like they did in the build video. So I mounted my camera right on the block of wood that slides. I have shaky hands and I think the handle on the tripod head would help with that a lot!

Fixes? I think if you used a bigger PVC pipe so the sliding T shaped things didn't touch the wood, that would help and to have a tripod head

WARNING! I had my camera roll forward off the track at one point. I drilled the hole for the screw directly in the middle of the mounting block but I think it should have been drilled farther back because the camera it self makes it very heavy to the front. I will use more caution next time. Luckily this thing stays low to the ground so it didn't take a nasty spill!

Let me know what you think!

DIY Slider Test

from Yank Inches on Vimeo.</p>

Thanks! I didn't have felt but I found some strips of Velcro and used the soft side of the pairing. It had sticky stuff on the back already so that was plus so I didn't need to glue it. A small strip over the screws and it was awesome. A few other miner things I have figured out is that mine didn't bow up like theirs did in the middle but I found myself putting screws in the middle anyways because it got wobbly when I got to about the half way point. So if anyone builds this, even though it doesn't bow up, you should put them there just for the support and stability.  Also I found that toward the very end on one side it slows down like crazy. It doesn't look it but the PVC pipes were wider at the end point. Most likely ended up that way after I screwed it down. So I corrected it by just screwing them closer together.

Very nice, but if you avoid the friction you loose the bit of jerkiness. You can use the same track and the camera mount upgrade it with 8 roller blade wheels. I have seen many styles of that.

Here is a sample of one:

Camera Slider Rollerblade Wheels

Looking at that design, I have to wonder.... what is holding the wheels to the "tracks"? It looks like its just sitting on there and there is no way I would put my camera on something like that.

OK how about this one, I really like this one, is really secure and smooth. 

Hi Jeffy

No it wasn't me. I found the video on youtube searching for another video I had seen about 8 months ago, but I really like his design, the groves on the ball bearings keep it locked in place and at the same time sliding very smoothly. I was just trying to help to provide ideas