Finally going to make the leap to X4. Any suggestions?

[McLaren]

What reading material do you guys recommend? There appears to be quite a few books from In House;

Mastercam Beginner Training Tutorial X4

Mastercam Handbook Volume 1 X4

Mastercam Mill Level 1 Training Tutorial X4

 

I'm not sure which one I should start with. What about MastercamU? Anyone tried it?

 

My biggest problem with switching is I use the keyboard for as much as possible and when X first came out it seemed like they hosed that ability. For example in V9 you could go "xtaedbeo Alt+o"

xform, translate, all, entities, done, between points, endpoint, (mouse click), origin, ok

How on earth do you do that now? It seems like you have to move the mouse all over town and back.

[Joe788]

Wayyyyy back when X was first released, I went to a pre-release conference and watched a demo. The presenter said, "everything you had in 9 is still here, but it's just in different places."

 

I honestly wish he'd never said that. Once I completely stopped trying to think of how I would do stuff in 9, I was really able to latch onto X. Do as many training and tutorials as you can possibly stomach. When you're done with those, do some more!

 

There are tons and tons of new features in X4 that will make your life easier.

 

Also, go to Ebay and get yourself a SpacePilot right from the start.

[Matt Berube at Ferron Mold]

It's really going to hurt your brain for a while but it's definitely worth the effort. Forget the keyboard shortcuts and focus upon customizing the icons the way you like them and add your most frequently used items to your right-mouse-button menu. In a few short months you'll find that if you have to open V9 for something it will be very annoying.

 

Hey as long as you're learning something new... Maybe throw in a Space Pilot to help offset your losses. You won't regret it especially for only $77...

 

Well I guess Joe beat me to it

[McLaren]

Awesome guys. Thanks for the input. And I ordered the Space Pilot yesterday! I kinda figured it the same way, might as well learn two new things at once, hopefully it won't be so painful to lose the keyboard.

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

Streaming Teacher!

[gcode]

A very useful pdf

C:McamX4documentationV92XFunctions.pdf

[Colin Gilchrist]

You'll also have to get used to 'Pre-selection'.

 

In V9, you had to activate a command before you selected your geometry. With X4, you generally select your geometry first, then pick your command. Why? Because it saves you the step of telling Mastercam you are 'done' selecting entities.

 

So for your example, You could press Alt+A (Select All), then pick the "Move to Origin" Xform command. Either by Hotkey, or icon, or menu pick. Then you pick the point that you want to end up at the origin.

 

Very easy once you get used to it. I bet I could window select all geometry, hit the button for Xform move to origin, and pick my point faster than you could hotkey it the old way. It is just a different way of working. Watch some videos on the 'Quick Mask' buttons. I use these soooo much.

[MIL-TFP-41]

quote:

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You'll also have to get used to 'Pre-selection'.

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You can turn this feature off....tho I would not recommend it. Once you get used to it, you will appreciate it. The combination of pre-selecting and quick masks make thing like changing colors, moving thing to different levels, changing line styles, ect a dream compared to the V9 interface. I personally hated the old interface....I learned other programs like CadKey & Solidworks just to avoid using it for anything else other than toolpathing. The X style interface, while not perfect, is vastly superior to the old one.

[kens1]

quote:

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Forget the keyboard shortcuts

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I disagree, although it depends on the individual. I never used V9, but I use keyboard shortcuts all the time for commonly used functions. I feel it saves a lot of time over using the mouse. If that's what you prefer, it's worth the time to set it up.

[jhjr]

Icons work well after u get the screen custimized to what u use, get rid of icons u don't use and add the ones u do use. One other thing to remember to do thats in X thats not in v9 is to end selection after u xform because entities are live and u can change them even when u think u are working on the next task with the same function.

[Cannon]

quote:

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quote: Forget the keyboard shortcuts

 

I disagree, although it depends on the individual. I never used V9, but I use keyboard shortcuts all the time for commonly used functions. I feel it saves a lot of time over using the mouse. If that's what you prefer, it's worth the time to set it up.

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I use keyboard shortcuts also so I dont have to waste my screen space for icons or scroll down endless MTB menus.