Hello,

I have been working with Solidworks since school but i ended up working with Topsolid 6 at work. Now recently i got them so far to switch to Solidworks.

In topsolid we had the possibility of adding in some kind of smart component in a tube frame assembly where Topsolid would ask pre-defined parameters such as lip length, lip width, lip thickness. After this the component appeared and could be mated to the side of the tube which merged the lip to the tube and made a hole for the lip in the tube thats attached to it creating some sort of pin-hole fixture so the people who weld the frame could bring the frame together as some kind of puzzle.

This is the tool we use, the blue part is the lip which gets merged with the tube, the light red is the  hole that get cut out of the other tube, the dark red are the laser notches so there wont be any excess material on the sides of the lip making it fit perfectly.

What is the best way to do this in Solidworks? I tried working with API (I could get the basic stuff to work but im not familiar with coding) and i also tried making a smart component but i didnt get really far with that either.

Thanks for your time in advance!