In article ,
Ned Simmons wrote:

Have you considered replacing the cables with a timing belt drive?
That's generally the most cost effective choice where high speeds and
accelerations, and moderate accuracy and stiffness are required. Breco
has pretty good engineering info, it looks like it's available online.

http://www.brecoflex.com/?CATID=1

I have, though that also requires (due to belt pitches available and
sprocket-sizes) some additional reduction (thus complexity) of the drive
to maintain resolution and power at present levels. A complete re-drive
(which might resolve that another way) is probably not on the menu for
this machine at this time or ever - if it can be made to work better, it
might manage to buy itself a friend eventually, and get retired to doing
more 3D input scanning and less cutting. Thus far it's been strictly a
hobby-use money sink. Fun, but less fun when it goes off and starts
ruining wood by not being where it thinks it is.

I get a bit squirrelly when dealing with places that have no price
information available until you specify everything and get a quote (how
can I make cost dependent engineering choices to specify things without
some idea of costs ahead of time?), which was one vote in favor of gear
systems, but given lots of replies supporting/suggesting/preferring the
belt conversion, I'll give that more thought and try to figure out what
components a quote might include without having any cost info - if it
comes out way above gears, I guess I'll know something at that point.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by