Can I use these little 3d printer drivers with 7i96?

TL;DR: Can I wire these little TMC2226 (or similar) 3d printer stepper drivers to a 7i96?

Before you laugh I know it seems like a silly matchup. I've been out of the cnc game for a few years now but now I have some projects on mind some I'm trying to plan to reuse some old parts. I'm still fairly out of the loop on the advances made in linuxcnc and hardware since.

I want to build another one of these light weight "3d printed" cncs . By default these machines used arduino/grbl based controllers , but I enjoy linuxcnc so I fully intend on on using linuxcnc instead.

I have a NIB Mesa 7i96 that I never put into production .  I have some raspberry pi 4 Bs laying around from old projects. I would need to find new stepper drivers. These tiny stepper drivers are proven to work fine for these machines. I like the idea of cost and especially space savings with these little chips, and how the original design of the above linked machine integrates their electronics into the gantry. 

So can I just wire these TMC2226s into the 7i96 as a drop in replacement for something  like my old TB6600 s?

I don't quite understand yet if these little chips with all their pins, and uart mode, are a different animal than the old stepper drivers I used before.

PS. I'm excited to find out that there is an official release for the rpi. I've already flashed it and have been poking around in it.

I forgot, do they have step/dir inputs?
If yes, then yes, they can be used with Mesa or parallel port.
Also, mind the power requirements as they do require 5V and 12-24V (or more).
Edit:
Just checked and yes they do have step/dir pins, so yes they will work.

Thank you, sir!

While I've got your attention I have another burning question, though slightly off topic.

As I mentioned I've been out of the loop for several years now. When I was last here plasmac (pre qtplasmac) was in heavy development and rpi4 support was "expiremental" and plasmac a no go.

Is the rpi a viable option now for a plasma table?

Yes it is.
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Personally, i will still not use RPI for sure, until it gets to under 50$, and since that will never happen, neither will my use of them.
I just buy old Lenovo laptops at 100-200 Euro a piece, and they come with everything included, battery and touchscreen included, all 14" of it. And it has much more processing power. With 2 cores.

Out of curiosity what model and specs do you look for in your Lenovos? How often to you come across one that's just not suitable?

forum.linuxcnc.org/18-computer/54369-use...mesa-ethernet-boards

"old Lenovo laptops at 100-200 Euro a piece"
Tommy,
could you kindly name a few of them?
I could test a T440p, T460p for example.
Greez
chris

PS: these do NOT have touch screens, though

T470 with FHD 120Hz touchscreen
Y370 laptop/tablet/pen/FHD 120Hz touchscreen
X1 Yoga gen1 laptop/tablet/FHD 120Hz touchscreen
Plain ol X240 seems OK also, had 2, still have one in active use

Notice the touchscreen and VSync frequency, those are very important as they are top of that line, meaning other versions might or might not be good latency vise.
The link i posted above has all the info and videos of them in use plasma cutting, so no interference issues with touchscreen.

Tommy
As always: Top!
While I started to use touch screens a couple of years ago, I reverted back to non touchscreen setups. I do mostly foam and wood stuff. Although I have a pretty efficient dust extraction system, there is sill a lot of dust landing on the touchs. Wipe them them off while chipmaking, and I guess you see the troubles. I use industrial grade Keyboards now
I have a yoga 370, some yoga 260, the mentioned T440p (should be as good as the X240). I'll test them and post results, placing the link to my findings in a later edit here for reference.
Greez
Chris