Thanks a lot for the stiffness measurements!

I had to put aside the research and design for my new cnc, that's why I didn't bother you.

If you accept challenges, here is one for you, as I see you are an expert at sheet metal bending: dust covers Click image for larger version. 

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Re homing/limits, I have set in Mach3 the sensors for both home and limits as well as setting soft limits with the min. max. travel. It works nice, stops before "hitting" the sensors in jog mode and I get limit warnings when g-code is out of the machine travel. With this setup I have never hit the hard limit switches so far.