Any experiencies with 7i76E

I have seen, mesa have a new Board 7i76E, which is the same like a combination of a 7I76 daughterboard and the 7i80 Lan FPGA Card.
I need for my Project this card and a 7i77 for controlling a 5 axis machine, i wonder if it runs correctly,
because the step/dir output of the card is only a asynchronous axe (toolchanger turret chain). Because the distance from the computer to the FPGA is more than 4metres through a not really big tube, I want use a lan cable instead of the 25wire parallel cabel. So the new card will be better than the method with either 5i25 or 7i80 because it needs a bit less harness.

The 7I76e is supported by the experimental ubc-7i80 branch and Preemt-RT.
Preemt-RT works well enough with a decent MB to get a reliable 2 KHz servo thread

I'm currently testing with the Gigabyte J1800-D2H (which is quite nice since its fast and fanless),
Ubuntu 12.04 and preemt-rt 3.14 kernel .

The equivalent Asrock CPU should be the same but doesn't not have the BIOS issues the Gigabyte
has with linux (needs a BIOS upgrade to boot)

That with the 1kHz will not be a problem. I have a servo motor with +/- 10V for the toolchain, but because the axe don't need to be synchronous to any other I will change the servo amp for a Gecko 520 iirc. The machine have a doublegrip changer, so I can search the correct tool while the machine is running, therefore a slow speed isn't an issue. With this combination I can build an separate horizontal dividing head, with this I can use long raw material in the machine. At the moment I can take only very short parts because the dividing table is vertically orientated. I think, its easier to find a step/dir driver for a stepper motor, than to search a cheap +/-10V drive with a servomotor.

I fear, thats a potential problem with the processing, because the 7i77 is the important board, but is the second in the chain.
If that its not the problem, I think its a better combination than the 7i80 with a 7i76 and 7i77. 1 Board less, some 100$ cheaper and a little less harness, not really much, only 1 cable from 26 doublerow to D-Sub.

Or is it much better, if I use a 5 or 6i25 Board in the MB. With this I have the problem to solder the 25pin connector. because I must pull the cable through a I think 2" tube, that isn't empty

If you only have a single stepper and the 7I77 has enough general purpose I/O, a 7I76 is massive overkill

so maybe a 7I80DB+7I77 plus a low cost parallel port breakout for the 7I80DB--> step/dir interface

PCW; Additional to the one or two step/dir channels I need the complete I/O channels from both boards. In the machine I have two complete Input boards and 1 output board with each 32 channels. And 1 board with only 2 or 3 Inputs, that I can substitute or remove. Mainrotation recognition or similiar.

Andypugh; I want to change the working +/-10V servoamp for a Gecko 520X iirc because a second 7i77 will be 60$ more than a 7i76. And the later added step/dir Driver will be as well cheaper than a +/-10V drive

A 7i76E is 70$ cheaper than a 7i80 and a 7i76

The Servo motor is an axem MC13S 375W DC 64V 7,6A 3000rpm

As I say, I need 2 step/dir or analog outputs for toolchain and later a dividing head. The machine itself needs 6 analog channels for x, y, z, b, c and spindle. additionally I need at least 64 DI and 32 DO. All of that I can make with either a 5/6i25, 7i76 and 7i77.
If I change the 5/6i25 for a 7i80 then I have only one small easy placeable cable in my machine and can use any computer I want. Not only a board with PCI(e) connectors. If I change the 7i80 with the 7i76 then I have the same but for a price 10/30$ lower then the combination with 5/6i25.
I know that I can change the 7i76 with the 7i84 but the extra 2axes step/dir will probably cost more, than the saving and I need more harnessing.

I want to change the control from my machine in the simplest, way with as few as possible parts.
Thats primarly, because I think its necessary, that I have from each part a spare part in stock.