Hello- Several years back I purchases a Sieg type X2 Mini Mill and converted it to CNC. I haven’t run it in a long time, but became pretty frustrated when during longer cuts (1hr+) the machine would miss steps and ruin the parts (that had taken several other long cuts to get to this point). In researching this a bit, I thought that upgrading to adding rotary encoders would be helpful, but I’m open to all suggestions. Hoping to spend no more than $500-$1000 to get a more reliable machine. I'm looking for your guidance on what I could/should do please!

For reference my CNC upgrade was done using the following:
• X, Y, Z Ballscrews (CNC Fusion kit)
• NEMA23 270 and 381 oz/in steppers (X + Y/Z respectively from Automation Technology Inc.)
• Gecko Diver G540 4 Axis Driver (Automation Technology Inc.)
I’m not even sure the driver would accept encoder inputs.

Please provide me any suggestions!

Kelly