5 axis milling machine with 7i96s

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11 Jul 2025 06:00 #331688 by Gautham
5 axis milling machine with 7i96s was created by Gautham
Hi Everyone, 

I am new here and new to CNC, Linux and Mesa boards, so pls excuse the novice questions.

This is my setup
I have a 5-axis milling machine, which uses 2 stepper motors for the z axis, so in total there are 6 stepper motors. I have also bought a servo motor ECMA-C21020RS from Delta to power my spindle. I have a Mesa 7i96s card

Now for my question
Have I bought the wrong Mesa card for my requirement? From my understanding, the 7i96s can only control 5 motors so my 6 steppers and servo exceed the capacity. If so, what would be the best solution? To buy another card and scrap the 7i96 or is there an option to buy an add-on card to work with the 7i96s?

Thank you in advance for your help

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11 Jul 2025 07:08 #331689 by Gautham
Replied by Gautham on topic 5 axis milling machine with 7i96s
I wanted to add that my machine also has a parallel port available, if that would help

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11 Jul 2025 13:15 - 11 Jul 2025 20:56 #331701 by PCW
Replied by PCW on topic 5 axis milling machine with 7i96s
You can add a daughter card to the 7I96S parallel expansion port.

You could  use a Mesa daughterboard (a 7I85S  or 7I78 would  add 4 step/dir axis).
You could also use an inexpensive parallel port breakout, like the common Sainsmart 
5 Axis breakout, either ST-V2 or ST-V3 or one of the many  similar parallel port
breakouts. 
Last edit: 11 Jul 2025 20:56 by PCW.

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13 Jul 2025 06:02 #331757 by jimmyrig
Replied by jimmyrig on topic 5 axis milling machine with 7i96s
As PC's said,

Your 7i96s is perfectly capable of driving at least 10 axis.

The process is
Use mesaflash to upload the 7i96 5bob firmware. That will allow you to use the additional axis.

I've done this with 2 separate installs and no issues.

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14 Jul 2025 05:32 #331804 by Gautham
Replied by Gautham on topic 5 axis milling machine with 7i96s
Thank you so much PCW and Jimmy, I will do more research into the options you have both suggested and see which would be easier for me to implement.

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14 Jul 2025 08:26 - 14 Jul 2025 08:27 #331808 by Gautham
Replied by Gautham on topic 5 axis milling machine with 7i96s
Hi PCW,

I found a card locally that seems similar to the Sainsmart breakout you had mentioned. I'll add the link below. It says its for Mach3 and LinuxCnc, would this work with my Mesa 7i96s. Thanks so much for your help. Interface Board CNC 5 Axis
Last edit: 14 Jul 2025 08:27 by Gautham.

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14 Jul 2025 15:14 #331820 by PCW
Replied by PCW on topic 5 axis milling machine with 7i96s

Hi PCW,

I found a card locally that seems similar to the Sainsmart breakout you had mentioned. I'll add the link below. It says its for Mach3 and LinuxCnc, would this work with my Mesa 7i96s. Thanks so much for your help. Interface Board CNC 5 Axis
 

Yes, that looks exactly like a Sainsmart ST-V2 so 7i96s_5abobd.bin firmware
will work with that.

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15 Jul 2025 04:20 #331843 by Gautham
Replied by Gautham on topic 5 axis milling machine with 7i96s
Thank you so much PCW
The following user(s) said Thank You: tommylight

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