Quote Originally Posted by ian823478 View Post
For powering the z axis I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that so far I've just bunged the motor on instead of the handwheel, there's at least 1.5mm of backlash through the rack and pinion, but the repeatability is pretty good, I just have the clearance plane in cambam set to 3mm.
Yes, I've seen that done. It depends what you're using the machine for but I would be worried about cutting forces moving the head up and down. How well do you find it works? What material are you cutting?

Russell.