mastercam x books

[doyleg]

does anyone know the differences of the mill training tutorial X and the mastercam handbook vol 1 X other than the projects available? are they any better than the books offered at your local community college or are they the same? any input would be appreciated

[Thad]

I haven't seen either for MCX, but I have them both for V9. I like the tutorial book from IHS, but the best book on MC that I have found is the Handbooks.

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Thad

[doyleg]

USING MCX MILL LEVEL 1 SP1 UPDATE 1

 

I FIND IT MUCH EASIER TO DRAW PARTS AND AM GETTING USED TO THE NEW ICONS. I DO BELIEVE IT WILL IMPROVE EVEN MORE THE MORE I GET USED TO IT. I DO HAVE SOME MINOR PROBS WITH POSTS THAT ARE BEING FIXED NOW. OTHER THAN THAT, I DO LIKE IT BETTER THAN V9.

[Nathan G. Baldwin]

Doyleg,

Welcome to the forum!

 

As a Mastercam instructor for a reseller, I can only tell you that I use the IHS books for all of my training.

I have found the X Mill tutorial to be wonderful in instruction. I have personally learned and taught on these books so I have seen it from both sides.

Aside from that, the mastercam user's guide is very helpful, though sometimes I've seen beginners have trouble with it.

 

Hope that helps.

 

BTW... You may want to read the "new users read this" area of the forum. It helped me avoid a great deal of faux pas, like typing in all caps.

[TalonTechnical]

What all exactly is covered in the In-House Mastercam X Handbook Volume1? I assume there will be other volumes coming out too?

I got the Mill Training Tutorial, and it is helpful but it's written more like a textbook rather than an extremely practical here's-how-to-get-running-quickly guide. As usual, it's not "get trained first then get results", it's "get results while you're learning it", and I don't have previous MC experience either.

What I haven't seen much of in the tutorial is: okay, I have a part 'buried' in the middle of a chunk of stock, contour will profile around it but what's the easy way to get MC to clean out all the remaining stock too? I'm hoping there are ways to set up the program to be smarter so I don't have to be...

I really don't expect to be using the design part of MC-X too much, at least for a while, so I don't care about info on that. We'll either be getting 3-d files from customers or I'll use TurboCAD (which isn't exceptional, but I have a lot more experience with it and it seems a bit more powerful in some ways) and export.

 

Eastech, what's the "User's Guide" you mentioned?

[Todd Tracey from Fastech]

The Handbook is created to be used as textbook for a 180 hour course in Mastercam. It is also the text we use to "Certify" teachers or students in Certified Classrooms. I sell a lot of the IHS books and find them ALL well received by those that purchase them. A pocket toolpath is used to remove a lot of material in many cases, even when you don't really associate the shape you are working with as being a pocket. It might be some type of island that you want to leave standing in an area. CHeck out the sample programs within Mastercam and usually you will see something that will give you an idea of the approach to use.

[doyleg]

Thanks for the help! We have purchased the handbook and the tutorial and they both look very well written. I'll update how they are perceived by the people using them later.