Looking to build another cnc specificially for solid surface carving

[JohnHaine]

The toothed belts on my Novamill have no signs of wear-induced backlash after 20 odd years. Timing belts are much easier to fit than gears too. But I agree that finer pitch ballscrew and direct drive would be superior, but finer than 5mm I think get expensive - over £200 a metre £100 for the nut?

But actually a 5mm pitch ballscrew would give plenty of resolution with modest microstepping - say 5/(200 x 8) = 3.125 micron which would be significantly smaller than the remanent backlash and probably as accurate as the screw itself.