The Arduino Indexer article in MEW 249 lacks all details on reducing backlash in the rotary table, but suggests that there are tips at DivisionMaster. I've just looked there, and find nothing remotely resembling a tip of any kind, so hope to find some prior art before embarking on taking out the slop in my Vertex 6" rotary table. (Doing things again, to get them right, is no big deal when developing software, but it is a distinct pain on the mechanical side.)

Can't help wondering what the backlash would be if I just made an indexer with double toothed belt reduction. If the practical limit is 5:1 per pulley pair, then 25:1 * 200 gives nearly 14 steps per degree, or 28 at half stepping. Then there's no worm slop and better tooth engagement. (But the rubber teeth can deform under load.)

Yup, it was still open in the browser, after my friend google found it. From there, I've scouted the "Examples of Use", "Detailed Description", and "News" links, without finding anything useful. As it was explicitly mentioned in the article, I had hoped it'd save some net trawling. And being 99% programmer/1% machinist, it's the mechanical tips I've bought the magazine for, these last 20 years.

Ah, I pasted the link in the email version of your post, Michael, which was their home page.

Now I see that there's a diferent link on the forum. I'll grub through that now.

Thank you very much.

Erik