Hi,
if you bought two MB02's, or equivalently two C10's, with port 1 bidirectional pins set as outputs and port 2
bidirectional pins as inputs you would have a total of:
12 (port 1) + 4 (port 2)= 16 outputs
4 (port 1) + 13 (port 2)=17 inputs
With 16 outputs, counting two for each axis, 5 axes for 10 outputs, plus two/three for a spindle or laser, still leaves
you with at least three outputs to spare.
If you had one input per limit switch and one input per home switch you can have all nine switches on their own input
without having to combine them onto fewer pins.
This is the advantage of an ESS.....plenty of IO....so use it!
In Mach4 you can have up to six axes, each one with up to four slaves.
The scheme you have proposed makes sense for Mach3 (X,Y,Z,A and B as a slave) but in Mach 4 you would have
X,Y plus slave,Z and A axes. In addition you can have up to six out-of-band axes which can be jogged or moved independently
of the coordinated axes and of each other. Mach4 offers a great deal more flexibility when it comes to axis arrangements
and assignments.
Craig