Hi Mark,
My advice would be to totally ignore the cheap Chinese motion controllers - they have issues and no customer support (plenty tales of woe posted here on the forum).
There are a number of good quality American or EU manufactured motion controllers that do provide good customer support and that is the way to go.
I have a number of different machines and applications so I currently use 5 different motion controller - they each have their own merits.
The Warp9 ESS has plenty of documentation and excellent customer support. You may like to check out their recommendations for breakout boards
https://www.warp9td.com/index.php/bob-vendorsor their forum
https://www.warp9td.com/index.php/kunena/recentTweakie.