Muzzer, all good points, and I’ve also got two encoder on my Mesa 7i76e /lathe, and very useful it is as well, I do use them all the time (as far as I use the lather, that is)

There are more controllers with one or two axis encoder than there are with 3 or more (these latter ones being some thing of a rarity). As far as the wireless pendants go, if these plug into your PC (rather than directly into s control card) with the machine running UCCNC or Mach, then you still have machine-in-loop and the machine is taking instantaneous demands from the handheld mpg and translating these to fragments of motion commands to the underlying controller. In which case you can manage multiple axis through the driver software. Been there, worn that tee shirt. I might just order three mpgs to demonstrate that.

Ironically, and tangential to this thread, my wired pendant (I don’t trust Wireless) appears susceptible to electrical noise now... if I walk it to my machine, the little led “tx” indicator will flicker from time to time as an unsolicited command gets sent. I’ve had it randomly turn the spindle on, and separately commands a Z-Ptobe. Maybe I need to try a wireless one! Or finish this dammed pendant.