In message , Richard Crisp
writes

using those goofy friction drives is just being cheap
when you can use a toothed drive that never slips in my opinion as a long
time design engineer.


Weird coincidence department - I'm having exactly the same problem in my
day job with a microplate reader (used in medical research).
They allegedly went from a gear system to friction drive because
customers complained about the noise, but why they didn't use a stepper
motor or an encoder to make sure the wheel is in the right place escapes
me.