Hello,
I recently built a 1000 mm × 1800 mm CNC router. After machining some very long parts, I noticed positional drift. Using a dial indicator, I measured approximately 0.002" of backlash on the X-axis. For reference, the machine is driven by Kevlar timing belts.
I'm running Mach3 and entered 0.002" in the backlash compensation settings, enabled compensation, and restarted the software. However, regardless of the value I enter, the machine's behavior doesn't appear to change.
I've seen several forum posts suggesting that backlash compensation is handled by the motion controller or breakout board rather than by Mach3 itself.
So, is my only option to replace my current breakout board (a $50 Amazon special) with a higher-quality controller?
Because these parts are time-sensitive, I've temporarily compensated for the error by manually adjusting the X-axis dimensions in my CAM software, but that's obviously not a long-term solution.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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