Can this be done with a 7i96?

i considered that, but i have 5 outputs, and i am using 4 for stepgen and 1 pwm and i need all 5. the laser is set up as a gantry so its xyy(magic)z for steps and a pwm for laser power.

What is the issue? with the 7I96 you have 4 step/dir channels plus PWM for laser intensity

I think what andy was suggesting if i understood correctly was to add a second pwm on the z for rastering instead of generating the pulses in software.

the problem is that with the way it is set up, it actually takes two channels to fire the laser, one (the pwm on 5) for the actual laser intensity and a second (z on 4) for triggering. the pwm is not the problem. that is easy enough. the problem is the actual trigger. if i used actual duty cycle which is a true pwm, then a pwm on 4 would work, but i use ppi more often and that is a synchronized firing with motion (on 4) which is kinda like a pwm i guess but slower and synched with movement

Right, you can do that at the servo thread rate but no faster
To do this with Mesa Ethernet hardware the DataPainter firmware
would need driver support. This should be possible with the hal_port
FIFO interface. The DataPainter firmware allows motion synchronized
1 bit (on/off) or 8 bit motion synchronized PWM up to about 500 KHz
(1 bit) or 60 KHz (8 bit PWM) at a 1 KHz servo thread.