When I cut a square frame of ¾” thick MDF using a ¼” cutter the finished piece is .05” larger than drawn on outside cuts but only .005 to.01” on inside cuts. Does this indicate backlash is present? I don’t feel any backlash when I try and push the gantry back and forth.
To give the background story I calibrated the machine yesterday (if I did this correctly) by drilling a hole in my base table, lifting the cutter and moving a set distance in MDI and drilling a second hole. I did this several times and finished by entering slightly different numbers (in the x and y axis’s) in the “steps per” field in motor tuning in Mach3. But now I question whether this method is correct as there’s no load on the machine when I’m just drilling holes. So my question is what do I change first, motor settings or backlash and how do I test for backlash if the motor settings might be incorrect? The old chicken or the egg question.

Brian