Halscope Basics

Sounds like something wrong with the Z axis drive or wiring
There is never any reason to reverse the tachometer wires unless the motor
wires are also reversed

I would verify that velocity mode is actually working on the Z axis drive before proceeding

One way to do this is short the velocity command inputs together, enable the drive
and see what it does (it should hold steady or creep slowly and resist any attempt to change
its current velocity)

Note that to electrically reverse an encoder, you can swap the A with B wires
_or_ swap the A+ and A- _or_ swap the B- with B+

if you swap both A+ with A- _and_ B+ with B- there is no change

SUCCESS! The machine is finally working and tuned to acceptable performance as far as I can tell and without bugs.
Some may show up later but as of now time to celebrate...and do some more celebration while I'm at it.

The last trouble was caused by my factory Bridgeport wiring.
The Z axis cable was wired with both the tach and encoder "A" channel + and - reversed in relation to the other two axis.
The Tach was easy to troubleshoot but the reversed "A" channel was the cause of a lot of grief.

Wow! Finally working after years of toil.

Not sure very many people will have the same trouble as me but my problem looking backward
was the basics of basics were missing. Here is what I learned that I wish I knew earlier:

1- You have to separate the lines.
2- You have to wait for the signal to stall in the box then jog your axis to get a pulse.
3- You change the settings with the Calibration screen.

If you could somehow work these 3 steps in and still keep very simple you would have a pretty good tutorial.

Also I pretty much got this far by learning with examples. I spend most of my time hunting down example configurations.
Then I compare them to another configuration and get the picture. The trouble is that example configurations are rare.
Good thing you put yours out or I would still be spinning my wheels.
Today i am happily spinning my motors.