Electric Column Dolly
Almost twenty years of column dollies, built into one.
MADE IN MUNICH
Since 2009
The GF-Primo and the GF-Secondo arrived in 2009, and the GF-Primo Ultra joined them later. Three base dollies, three steering selectors, three part lists, and behind them years of upgrades and feedback from grips.
The GF-Column Dolly is what came of that.
Two parts
The one it has always been: a powerful dolly column that rotates and comes off, sitting on a base dolly. Both have been reworked for this generation.
Multifunctional turnstile
The mount has an updated brake that locks instead of clamping, and holds under any load. The main seat keeps its safety function and comes off whenever nobody has to ride, and the footprint is smaller without it. In its place goes a GFM insert mount. Every GFM insert fits it, so a bearing the dolly already carries becomes a rotating camera mount, on the turnstile or on the column. All existing turnstile accessories still fit.
The new generation
Behind all of it sits the same brief GFM has always worked to: simple mechanics that need little service and hold up over a long life on set.
Crab and steer run through a gearbox built from scratch for this generation. Smooth and resistance-free.
The column travel has been reworked: quieter on the move, steadier at the ends of travel.
The control electronics are new throughout, and so is the wireless link that carries them.
New housing, new display, and a menu laid out so the settings a grip reaches for are the ones on top.
The track wheels and the studio wheels have both been reworked.
A small lever on the base dolly brakes the ring the column turns in. That ring is the column bearing, and it has been reworked for the new generation.
An updated brake that locks instead of clamping, so the mount holds under any load.
It comes off whenever nobody has to ride, which slims the footprint, and a GFM insert mount takes its place.
Electronics
Not a new shell on the old board. The housing, the display, the rocker under your thumb and the menu behind it were designed together, for the one hand that is free while the other is on the steering rod.
Lift position, battery levels and the mode, all readable at arm’s length instead of a bar of segments you have to guess at.
The rocker answers. Your hand feels the input land, so your eyes can stay on the shot and not on the unit.
Plain wording and real numbers: charge as a percentage for all three, the two dolly batteries and the hand unit.
Rain, a wash-down, a dusty day outside. The housing stays shut, and the weather stops being a reason to wait.
No proprietary charger to pack, and none to lose.
The system behind it
The electronics of the dolly are new end to end: the control unit, the main cable that runs out of it, the sensors that feed it and the logic that reads them.
Steering
Crab and steer change over at one selector, and the gearbox behind it is standard on every GF-Column Dolly.
Conventional rear steer with steering geometry: the rear units turn, the front units stay straight, and the dolly swings around its front axle. The inner rear wheel turns further than the outer one, so both roll around the same centre instead of scrubbing.
All four units turn together. The base dolly keeps its heading and travels sideways or diagonally: the mode for running along a wall without turning the dolly first.
The front units turn together to the same angle, while the rear units stay straight.
The rear units turn together to the same angle. Same end of the dolly as Steer, but without the steering geometry between the two wheels.
Steering input
Feature overview
Works on it
Built to carry one or two people plus the camera, the GF-Primo Jib is a modular arm for tight sets. On the GF-Column Dolly it adds 154 cm of lift, and the rotating turnstile mount underneath lets it pan right through a full turn.
| Electric column | ||
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 80 kg | 176 lbs |
| Max payload | 250 kg | 550 lbs |
| Lift range | 72–142 cm | 28″–56″ |
| Min to max | 2.5 seconds | |
| Wireless | ||
| Frequency | 2.4 GHz, FHSS | |
| Radio channels | 9 | |
| Range, outdoor | 200 m | 660 ft |
| Range, indoor | 30 m | 98 ft |
| Base dolly | ||
| Width | 79 cm | 31″ |
| Height | 72 cm | 28″ |
| Track width, standard | 62 cm | 24.5″ |
| Track width, narrow | 36 cm | 14″ |
