MESA 6i24 daughter board?

Hi and happy new year everybody! Glad to be newly part of this forum.
Beware, I'm a total newbie to linuxCNC and FPGA!
I'm building a LinuxCNC general purpose controler unit to interface with (one at a time) different CNCs.
I already have a 6I24-16 FPGA based PCI Anything I/O card but after reading around this forum and the Internet, I am totally lost!
I'm looking for advises to choose a "best suited for my needs" daughter card breakout board to be used with the MESA 6i24-16-RHOS (72 I/O bits available on three 50 pin connectors).
MESA customers service has suggested the 7I37TA 8 output, 16 input isolated I/O card for daughter breakout board.
My minimum I/O needs are:
- output to at least 4 Wantai DQ542MA non-servo stepper drivers (4x dir/step + 1x enable = 9 outputs)
- output to at least 4 binary on/off switches for coolant, tool changer etc... (4 Outputs)
- input for at least 4 end-stops. (4 inputs)
- input for at least 1 rotary encoder (1 input)
That would be a total of 13 outputs and 5 inputs (including the rotary encoder) where the 7I37 has only 8 outputs.
Should I buy two MESA 7I37 8 output, 16 input isolated I/O cards?
Is it complicated to setup linuxCNC to use more than one daughter breakout board (Mesa flashing+LinuxCNC HAL setup)?
What would be your other/alternative suggestions for daughter board(s)?
Cheers.

store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=produc...d=301&search=6i24-16
store.mesanet.com/index.php?route=produc...t_id=104&search=7i37

A 7I37TA can do the low speed 12V or 24V I/O (16 inputs and 8 outputs)
You would need another daughter card for the step/dir outputs and the encoder
I would suggest a 7I47 (if your encoder has differential outputs) or a 7I52S
if your encoder has single ended outputs.

Thank you very much for your very informed opinion and your lightning quick reply.
I will order a 7I47.
Greetings from France.

PCW is saying you need to order 7i37TA and the 7i47.

Hi Benb.
For what I understood; PCW suggested both the 7i37TA for extra but slow I/O and the 7i47 for motion & encoder. .
I did order both.
Maybe my quick and bad "non native English speaking" answer lead you to think I only ordered the 7i47 but I meant I chose the 7I47 (differential) over the 7I52S (non differential).
Do you see any thing wrong with that choice?
Other suggestions or advises are very welcome!

I'm still in the controller box building phase, shielding cables and optimizing dustless air flow, etc... Waiting for the Mesa to be delivered to complete the wiring.
I'm reading the very extensive 700 pages LinuxCNC documentation at the same time and gathering as much information as possible over the forum and the Internet before the "still pretty blurry to me" LinuxCNC setup phase.
I guess the learning curve can't be very steep with such a many purpose/versatile peace of software. Especially when nothing is plugged in yet!

So, once again, suggestions or advises are very welcome!
Thanks for your concern, Benb.
Take care.

the 7I52s does have differential Step/Dir outputs (just like the 7I47)

Thank you PCW; I did notice the 7i52 has differential Step/Dir outputs.
Since the only encoder I will be using is a differential one (less sensible to noise), I decided to follow your advise:

PCW wrote:

I would suggest a 7I47 (if your encoder has differential outputs) or a 7I52S
if your encoder has single ended outputs.

The 7i47+7i37TA should be plenty for my needs and even more...
My build will control my small home made router at first, but I also plan on turning my Proxxon mini lathe to CNC and sometimes my shop gets pretty "noisy" with welding and plasma cutting, hence the differential encoder.
Thanks again for keeping an eye.

The 7I52S has differential encoder inputs as well
(Though it can accommodate TTL encoders)

If necessary I'll switch to an 7i52S later on... For now 7i47+7i37TA looks perfect! Thanks.