There are other options for sure, i did not use them so i can not refference numbers, but there should be an analog output daughter card, there are encoder cards, IO cards, etc.
Would gladly have a look and report back if i get a chance, in the meantime, others please chime in.
I use the 6i24 (PCIe version, out of stock) on my lathe, it's probably the most IO pins / $£€ of the Mesa boards. The 6i24 is a PCI card, though, and so would need a PCI (not PCIe) motherboard.
Alternatively, still working with the 50-pin "HD" family of mesa cards, MesaUS has a 7i80HD in stock that would work with the 7i36. (there are also other HD servo interfaces, such as the 7i48 but for a lathe I think that the 7i36 with 4 channels + onboard GPIO is a better bet)
The pc im using used to be a mining rig so theres no issues with pci stuff, do we know if theres existing firmware for that setup?
I don't know, but I would imagine that the 5u24 is the most likely current board to drive a 7i36 so it there isn't then Mesa would probably make one if asked.
About how much computing power does the pc need to have to run linuxcnc, ive only experanced mach3 and that didnt take any lol
LinuxCNC needs very little CPU, it can run on Pis and Beaglebones, for example.
