CAD Forum

I've been asked to look into whether or not a tool exists, or could be possible for me to make, to automate checking of matching hole wizard holes - ie., if I have an M6 tapped hole in one part of an assembly, we want to check if there is another hole wizard feature in another part that shares an endpoint with it, and if there is we want to check to see if it's a standard clearance hole size like 6.6mm. The idea would be to issue a warning to the user if we had something like an M6 tapped hole paired with an M5 clearance.

The idea is to do this for hole wizard features only - if a designer makes a clearance hole with an extruded cut or if the hole is in imported geometry, we don't think it would be feasible to check. I don't think it's likely easy to make even just focusing on hole wizard holes, but the basic concept sounds like it could be possible?

So essentially:

• Does this kind of thing exist in any form - macro or purchased tool/plugin or thing that does something similar and could be modified?
• If it doesn't exist, is it likely something that could be made? Or is there an obvious roadblock that would make it not worth trying?

Have a look at "Hole Series". This uses the Hole wizard, while ensuring the holes match up, and also allows you to add the correct size fasteners.

Theoretically it should be possible with macro, but thing get much more complicated when you try to factor in different scenario such as drafted hole, different fit, slot clearance hole, patterned and mirror holes, etc.

One easy way that i can think of is to create a macro that read the feature name of the hole you selected, if both hole is created using hole wizard, you should be able to extract the size from them (unless someone rename the feature name or if the hole is patterned or mirrored)...