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Emil Rindell
Jonas Bryntesson
Henrik Andersson
December 11, 2025
Emil Rindell
Jonas Bryntesson
Henrik Andersson
December 11, 2025
Using pins and holes makes it easy to place different parts in the right place before welding, for example. It is used for fixtures, among other things, but also for general machine construction. Parts designed in IRONCAD often IRONCAD via DXF to a laser cutting machine that creates parts with exact dimensions.
This feature is included in IC Mechanical – a powerful add-on to IRONCAD makes it quick and easy to create mechanical details. The tool works equally well on both Innovative Parts and Sheet Metal Parts. Read more about IC Mechanical and about IRONCAD .
Here we show you how to use Create Tabs and Slots to quickly add tabs to one edge and automatically create matching slots on the opposite part.
Drag and drop the tool onto the edge where you want the tabs to be.
The dialog box opens where you select the tap type and all dimensions.
Want to add your own pins? Scroll down for more information.
Select how the pins should be distributed along the edge:
Here you specify the distance from the start and end of the edge. The arrow icon quickly reverses the start and end values.
All dimensions for the selected pin:
Here you control how much larger the hole around the pin should be (tolerance). The padlock locks the same value for all directions.
The yellow semi-transparent preview shows exactly how the hole will look on the opposite side.
The video above shows how to create your own pins and holes. Note that IronPROXT was the previous name for this add-on. It isMechanical called ICMechanical .
Custom pins are created as parametric .ics files and must be parametric.
Example:
Tab1.ics (the tab itself) The IntelliShape name should be Tab and contain the following parameters:
Slot3.ics (the hole created on the opposite part) The IntelliShape name should be SMDrill and contain:
Save the files in ..\ICMechanical\Library\Tabs and ..\ICMechanical\Library\Slots (can be changed with IPROSetting)
Tip: Add a .jpg file with the same name as the .ics file to display a preview in the drop-down list.
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