Ethercat boards and hardware

Hello
I know about the mesa cards and been eying them a lot and thinkng about getting one for my future CNClab BUT.
i found Ethercat and found that solution with connecting drivers ect with a simple ethernet cable and hat seems like a sturdy communication protocol.
the thing is i want to experiment with smaller motors and im fairly new to PLC components, most ethercat drivers and such are for larger and expensive motors.
does anyone know of a form of breakout board that i can use to send step/dir to for example a A4988 driver, i have a lot of old 3d printer hardware laying about. or could the add-ons for the EK1100 for digital output/input work for this? 
i'm just trying to get started with my lab so i can play around with different setups and learn linuxcnc thoroughly, a mesa card i probably in the future but atm my fixation is on ethercat.