Z axis error woes

[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)