I have been using weldments for design of frames that use Aluminum T-Slot Extrusions. However, while there are things I love about weldments, there are also limitations that make it less desirable for T-slots (which it wasn't really designed for).

The complex shapes of the extrusion are a challenge to do as a weldment because any small edits cause the entire weldment to re-generate. Also, it is harder to change profile sizes after you create an assembly, because most of the items mated to the weldment will loose those mates. So, I figure it is MUCh easier to just use the weldment feature as it was originally intended and use a plain square extrusion shape.

But, for the T-slots themselves, we don't actually need the slot itself except as a visual representation showing things like how many slots there are.

So, perhaps I can write a VBA routine that will add the visual appearance of the slots by creating 3-D sketches for each T-slot extrusion.

The VBA steps would be;

Search the assembly for any extruded features beginning with "T-Slot".
Obtain the value for the length of the extrusion, and the orientation of the sketch plane, and the location of any sketch points (the pierce points in a weldment).
Create a new 3D sketch, and draw a line the length of the extrusion where any sketch points exist.

Does this sound viable? Any other ideas?

Joe Dunfee
SW2008 sp4