Z axis error woes

[JAZZCNC]

Yep he really had us going off on different planes. . . .

[Swarfing]

Talk about SKIMMING the surface i tell ya, we could have gone off the RAILS with this one for sure?

[JAZZCNC]

LMAO . . .Can't come back at that one Poz. . :clap:

[Swarfing]

Hank what about just lifting the holders and soldering the QFP's directly to board?

Thanks Jazz at least it was us not STEPPING out of line here.......:naughty:.....My last one promise

[HankMcSpank]

Hank what about just lifting the holders and soldering the QFP's directly to board?

Well I have 3 '(likely fake) A3977s winging their way to me from china ...once they arrive, I'll look at doing something like this.....

[Swarfing]

Jazz your as bad as me not reading it all as well! Apologies to Hank:whistling:

[HankMcSpank]

Ok...solved!

It was my stepper board after all. This mnorning I managed to wire in a nasty Chinese TB6560 based stepper board (in place of my easy-cnc 3 axis board).....selected 1/8 microstepping, calibrated my axises -BINGO! (so as suspected a combination of low axis resolution & then missed steps which was causing large errors on my Z axis (& likely the other axises too)

I'm now quite content with the results, certainly the SOT23-5 (which only has 0.4mm of space inbetween the pins!) is fine by me....
(the pic below is massively magnified - that main IC toward the middle of the photo is an SOIC-14 package ...which is just about 8mm long)


(the stray islands of copper you see randomly peppered about the board - eg just above & below the SOT23-5 pads - I'm not worried about them, so it's not in my g-code to remove them)

Thanks for all your input....it's nice to put this one behind me!

[Jonathan]

Result looks great from here. What V-cutter did you use (angle, flat width)?

[HankMcSpank]

That was a cheap carbide V cutter from China - 20 degree angle, 7500rpm (ie the fastest my spindle goes), about 0.15mm depth)

[Swarfing]

Grand job Hank and good to see you are on your way again. Well done