So to the extent that the last couple are directed at the OP, please read the thread. It becomes clear that the driver offers no backlash setting (at least not yet), and the very first sentence of my initial post was:

I put together an autofocuser from a stepper motor, timing belt and pulley, and a bracket to mount it on top of my refractor.

Still, I appreciate the attempt to help!

If the skies ever clear again I'm going to try with a smaller initial step value -- the smallest that will cause a visible change in the focus -- and a bigger multiplier, so that the initial move definitely takes out the backlash.

I also may change the driver a bit, my motor combined with microstepping makes 10 or even 100 steps completely invisible with Kevin's driver out of the box, so I put in a big multiplier to actually get the shaft to move.

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