If you are trying to convert any non-zero voxel value into a value of 1, you can do something like this
3dcalc -a mydset.nii.gz -expr 'step(a)' -prefix mydset_mask.nii
That works for positive values at each voxel. If you want to include negative values, then use 'step(abs(a))' in your expression. If you want values that exceed some threshold, then use 'step(a-0.12345)', replacing the value for the threshold. Hope that makes sense and that it answers your question.