New to the forum.
I am presently building my second DIY plasma table and electronic pak.
My first one was based on an Arduino this one will be based on Mach4
I have been toying with Tracks vs Ball screws. I have a couple of C5 ball screws that are begging to be used so will use them for the Y axis.
I am trying to keep the X axis drive compact so that the motor does not hang out the side of the gantry. So its either a rack and pinion style or pursue a 90 degree gearbox that has 1:1 with a very tight backlash.
My question is, has anyone used a 90 degree gearbox and if so, good idea or bad?
My gantry support arms are wide enough I could put the motor in the support arm facing upward and have it enter the gearbox and the only thing that would show is the end of the gearbox, coupler and ball screw support. So it would be more eye pleasing and some are offered with backlash of 20 arc minutes or .33 degrees backlash which would "appear" to be doable.
Any help would be appreciated.

Easy to calculate the effective linear backlash.  Assuming  5mm pitch screw .33 degrees would be 5x0.33/360 = about 5 microns.  Or you could use a 1:1 timing belt drive to fold it through 180° which could have effectively zero backlash.  And cheaper!

Easy to calculate the effective linear backlash.  Assuming  5mm pitch screw .33 degrees would be 5x0.33/360 = about 5 microns.  Or you could use a 1:1 timing belt drive to fold it through 180° which could have effectively zero backlash.  And cheaper!

Great suggestion, I never thought of belting it