Which Mastercam Book to Buy?

[Motorsports-X]

Im wanting to freshen up the skill set so Am going to pick up a new manual for 2019.   not out yet, but I was looking at 2018, and they have like 3 different books for the same thing (3d surfacing)  A handbook, a professional, and a tutorial series.   Seems like the handbook is the largest and most expensive (so I assume holds the most info) 

Anyone have thoughts? 

[DanielGingras]

Hello,

The training tutorials, professional courseware, and handbooks will cover the same concepts but approach them differently. The training tutorials are step-by-step part-focused books that basically lead you from a blank screen in Mastercam to a part that's ready to be posted. The Mill Advanced TT for 2018 has 7 different parts and gives you detailed instructions for how to create the geometry (or open existing geometry and manipulate it) and then create the toolpaths. The professional courseware is function-focused. It has exercises, maybe 1-5 pages long each, that each focus on a single function. You typically open a Mastercam file with most of the work already done except for the work needed to complete that exercise. Each exercise stands by itself and isn't put in the context of a general Mastercam workflow. The professional courseware also assumes the user has more knowledge of Mastercam and tells you to perform a command and gives the values to enter in fields but assumes you know where to find the commands and where the revelant fields can be found. The handbooks are more theory based and spend more time explaining functions and concepts with a few demonstration exercises. Each of the store pages has a link to a free sample PDF so you can compare how each title approaches the same concepts. Handbook Volume 2 covers the same level of Mastercam (Mill Advanced/3D milling) as the Training Tutorials and Professional Courseware.

If you're comfortable with reading books in a webbrowser, you could buy the Sitewide Subscription here. This will give you access to all eBooks and streaming videos so you can go through all 3.