Mastercam (at least, for educational users) ships with workbooks that walk you thru using it as a CAD tool, then, as a CAM tool. These are pretty good, though I would prefer to skip the modeling tools since we have other (& better) solid modelers. If you're using SolidWorks, you can output an IGES or ParaSolid, which Mastercam is more than happy to import (saves lots of tedious re-drawing). You then tell which geometries you need machined, & Mastercam generates your toolpaths. Very powerful, but also with lots of options. Mastercam does not have a "40 minute running start" like SolidWorks. The menu structure is a bit awkward. That said, the online help is pretty good. Richard Cozzens has written a pretty nice tutorial workbook (SDC Publications; www.schroff.com; ISBN 1-58503-089-9) which is very much a "click-by-click" tutorial, similar to the books shipped with educational Mastercam. Lin & Shiue's book (Scholars Int'l Press) is v8, not v9, but is extremely comprehensive. One of my graduate students swears by it.

I'm having a hard time just getting my students thru 3 axes (among other things, they have 15 3-hr lab sessions to learn conventional machining & rapid prototyping, and I'm also adding a CMM to their plate). On the other hand, I'd love to teach 4 axis (I don't have 5) to a few advanced or interested students. So, I'll keep an eye out for the 4/5 axis book. Hy

Thanks for all the helpful hints. I went & bought new taps (local DoAll sales folks suggested OSG/Ossner spiral flute taps; cost a bit under $8/ea). That fixed the problem. I'm up to 1000 rpm in aluminum now. By the way, the post processor does generate a G84.1 line.

CNC is a Fadal with rigid tapping cycle. I tell MasterCam to use rigid tapping, & let it calculate feed rates from speeds. Standard toolholders, no tension/compression or tapmatic. Cutting tap, not roll-forming. Don't have the budget to let (too many) things break, which is why I'm sticking to wax & aluminum. Didn't mean to try to project an attitude, just don't have the money. Thanks for the suggestion to find taps that suck chips up. Will try that next. Don't quite have the guts to try 1000 rpm (or 6114 rpm for 400 sfm!) This is not so much a MasterCam issue, but a machining issue where I have no experience. (Our machine shop people are all conventional, so I'm sort of swimming on my own). The G-codes put out by MasterCam look very much like the canned cycle in the Fadal.

Done the "add to tool" 0; 0 in job setup. Works once, does not work the next time I bring in a new tool.

Aluminum (I won't allow my students to do anything but machinable wax or aluminum on our CNC), say 1/4-20. On machinable wax, the rigid tapping cycle works beautifully with a #7 drill & 1/4-20 tap, set at 100 rpm. When I do it on aluminum, it's BANG instant broken tap. Someone recommended that I use a slightly larger drill (e.g. #5 rather than #7). Any other hints? Any recommendations (specific brands/models would be great) for taps, & settings for the rigid tapping cycle (e.g. rpm, clearance planes, etc.?) Thanks!

Mastercam Mill v9/Sp1. When I create a job setup, I also click on the button saying "length & diameter offsets from tool #". After creating an operation, when the parameters menu comes up with "right click to get tool from library", & I bring in a tool (say Tool #1), it still wants to give it diameter offset #21 & length offset #2 (which is extremely annoying). When I reuse the tool for a subsequent operation, it again wants to give the tool a new diameter offset & length offset #. Has anyone else seen this? Any fixes? Right now, I just tell my students to keep an eagle eye on *ALL* the little boxes, but that's going to be a drag. Thanks!

1 seat Mastercam, 1 seat Gibbscam. 1 rapid prototyper; 1 Fadal VMC15 (with 4th axis), and some old manual lathes & mills (no DRO's). I don't teach Mastercam; I hand the students the book & tell them to do the exercises. My situation is slightly different; we have 3rd/4th year engineering students who need to do projects, so they learn enough to be able to do their projects. We use Pro/E to export IGES to Mastercam. We also have Pro/Mfg, but it's a dog...

This allows MasterCam to work for regular users (it may not enable launch by double clicking; I didn't try). Really horrible fix: (1) As administrator, go to the MasterCam install directory in Explorer (2) Right click the install directory; properties; security (3) Enable full control for that specific directory & subdirectories for regular users v8.1 (what we have) is not really Win2k friendly. It's really meant for individual users; not multiple users sharing 1 workstation. (Don't ask me what hoops I had to go through to get Gibbscam to work on the same workstation! Ugh!)