Absolute easiest way to add a 6th stepgen to my mesa 7i96s setup?

I am building out an XZC+Stepgen spindle lathe and want to add a dual motor Y axis to this lathe. Right now i am using 4 of the 5 stepgens for XZC+Spindle but i am hoping there is something easy I can do to add one more stepgen.


Is there a firmware that would unlock another stepgen for my 7i96s? Should I forgo that and look for an addon card? My goal is to mess with as little stuff as possible so as to not break what is already working.

I heard there might be a firmware that would allow this without a daughter card but I am looking through the support software and it seems there isnt a currently built one?

Any ideas?

You can use say 7i96s_5abobd.bin. 

This gives you 10 stepgens total and expects a common "Mach 5Axis BOB"
(shown below) parallel port breakout connected to P1.

You can run step drives directly from the P1 outputs (step drive STEP+,DIR+ to +5V
STEP-,DIR- to P1 outputs) BUT a wiring mistake will be costly...