Z-axis huge slack / beginning a conversion

Quote:

Originally Posted by diy-john

Thought about using pulleys/belts, to bring ballscrew horizontally closer to the quill.

Close as you can, even if it means taking an angle grinder to the mill head. Nothing wrong with timing belts and pulleys, much preferable to microstepping and you don't have to align the motor to the screw. Avoid small pulleys, you want lots of teeth engaged on the belt.

Are you not using taper tooling? I don't see where you plan to release the quill from the screw when you hammer the taper out. The two point quill nut mounting looks really good.