The Mastercam Launcher utility helps you set up desktop icons and give them special properties. If you work in a company using a Network license of Mastercam this will help ensure that you activate only the licenses you need while leaving others available on the system. To access this utility, go to the Start menu/All Programs, and find the Mastercam Program Group. Inside here, look for the Mastercam Launcher icon. You may find the icon in a subfolder labeled Utilities in earlier versions of windows. Note there are two primary areas of the launcher window: the upper portion designates what Platform (for example Lathe or Mill) is available for checkout. This also will determine what product level, such as Mill 2D or Mill 3D is to be used, and if that item is to be suppressed, made available, or made active at startup. Once you have your products and levels selected, you can move on to the Add-on section and set what licenses you want to have checked out when you use this shortcut. Options like Art, Mill Turn, and Productivity + can be enabled in here. Then you go to the middle of the page and select the Create Shortcut option. You [...]

Did you know that you can export your lathe tool assemblies from Machining Cloud and turn them into 3D Tools in Mastercam? Well, you can and this article will show you how to do it. First, go into the Machining Cloud app and then into the My Workshop section. From here, select the My Tools tab up at the top. In here you will be able to find all of your tool assemblies that you have created. Once you find the tool that you want to create in Mastercam, just select it and go to the Download Model option, then select the 3D Rendered Model selection. Next, go into Mastercam and launch the Lathe package. From here, click on the Turning tab at the top and then into the Lathe Tool Manager. Now you can right-click and select the Create 3D Tool option. This will now launch the new 3D Lathe Tool Manager and allow you to import your STP Models into the software. After going through the handful of steps of importing your insert and holder you will get a true rendering of your tool. In this new tool design manager, you can set the orientation of the tool in the turret, which spindle [...]

This article will explain how to rename your linked machine files in Mastercam 2019. The MD_CD_PST_Rename C-Hook will automatically make backups of your original files and update the links between the new files that it creates. Here’s how it works . . . In this example, we have a set of machine files loaded in Mastercam. Imagine that your shop has three similar machines with slightly differing attributes. You can use the renaming utility to make three copies, then edit each one to have the unique properties that you want. First, go to Home/Add-ins/Run Add-in. A file open dialog opens pointing to C:\Program Files\Mcam2019\Chooks folder. Scroll down and select the MD_CD_PST_Rename.dll and click OK. Next, a caution panel pops up to assist with backup files. Since you already loaded a machine in the Mastercam file, that machine and its component files are shown in the source panel on the left. But, you could easily browse to any other machine, or machine type that you might want. The right panel has three boxes you can click in to set the names for the new copies. Note that you can click the configuration button at the upper right to set the data paths and preserve [...]