Impact 4-Roll Motorized Background Support System

Excellent product, needs better instructions and a way to secure seamless paper

First and most importantly, this is an excellent product, extremely heavy duty and well made! I wish I could give it 5 stars, but it has some missing information and accessories. The biggest challenge is there is very little information on how to attach backdrops to the rollers. They mention putting a paper backdrop tube onto the roller, but then the paper just spins and unrolls. I ended up designing and 3d printing a set of plastic wedges to jam between the cardboard tube and the metal bar. By having wedges on both sides, it keeps the paper relatively centered relative to the tube and it works very well. Without these wedges, you might need to remove the paper from the cardboard tube and tape it to the metal roller. None of this is mentioned in the docs. The controller is great with a long cord, but it doesn't have any way to mount it to a wall. I didn't want it hanging loosely by the wire so I designed and 3d printed brackets to hold it to my wall. It should include mounting brackets. For fabric backdrops, there are no directions, and if you just tape the fabric to the metal bars, the fabric gets folded and wrinkled when rolled up. I fixed this by hanging my backdrop upside down, so the pocket is on the bottom. I taped the opposite edge to the metal roller and used a piece of 1⁄2" schedule 40 PVC pipe in the pocket to add evenly distributed weight to the fabric. I think the rollers will work well with a more stiff canvas backdrop, which you would gaffer-tape to the metal rollers, but I have not tried that yet. The rollers are easy enough to install and remove on your own, but the bolt that holds it in place is too tight. They should drill the holes a little bigger or include slightly smaller bolts. And at the left edge of the rollers, there are rubber grommets that often fall off when inserting and removing the bar. I've only seen one other company selling a similar motorized backdrop system and theirs is far more expensive, making this product a great value. In summary, I think it'll work great for me, it feels very solid and well made, and it looks great. It needs extensive instructions on how to mount paper, canvas, vinyl, and fabric backdrops. It needs a way to "wedge" cardboard rolls of seamless paper, and it needs clips to mount the controller to the wall. Overall, however, I have no regrets and this is a huge upgrade over those plastic rollers that everyone else makes, and my backdrops do not sag at all with this unit. All those aluminum backdrop stands will sag and cause distortions in your paper backgrounds.