how to import a sketch into a part and position it?

Seems to me that you would want to save the imported boards as parts, and then bring the housing & the board parts into the assy. That way you could place the boards any way you choose.

WT

What you want to do is what we refer to as top down modeling.

If you make an assembly of your parts position the boards exactly where you want them. Now you can select the housing part and RMB select edit part the housing will turn (red) and the rest of the assembly will be (grey). Now you are actually editing the housing from the context of the assembly. Now select the face you want to sketch on and start a new sketch. Then select an edge of each hole you want to transfer and use the convert entities tool. Now you have transfered each hole to a new sketch and they will stay in line. With in context it is normally good practice where possible to break the in context relationship once you have finalized the parts, just incase someone screws up the assembly causing the incontext stuff to go haywire.

There is one other way to accomplish similar results but depending on angles and other things it can be quite a pain, yet sometimes it is really easy.

In your part file you can Insert>Part. This will insert a body representing the selected part and you can then move and rotate the body to where you want it and make the holes in relationship to that body then if the part you inserted changes so will the one you inserted it into. Again you may want to break the context but it isn't as necessary in this case since you probably would want it to keep this relationship.

The most common way is using "modify sketch"... Tools/Sketch Tools/Modify (icon with the arrow above the plus/minus)

Not sure why you are using seperate imported dxf sketches...but, if you already have used the sketches for making the parts then you should be able to reference (convert entities) those sketches in your assembly to build your housing.

That is, you could reference (convert entities) those sketches incontext (in the assembly) (you can break the reference later if you want) from the parts which you insert/position/rotate,.. Also consider using other things like,... using a "derived sketch" from within a assembly. Or, do a "Insert/Part",.. which inserts the part (solid or surface (like a planar surface) into your housing part and you can move/rotate the bodies into position. (you can break these references as well if you want)

..

Steve,

You need this command:

Tools -> Sketch Tools -> Move or Copy

or

Tools -> Sketch Tools -> Rotate or Copy

They lead you to the same place, anyway. For these you need to be in the active sketch, but you select the entities to be moved after selecting the above mentioned commands.

If you need only translation, then:

Tools -> Sketch Tools -> Align

Long time ago there was only the "Modify Sketch" command. You may use the this, which is a fake in my opinion, because it translates the origin of the sketch, instead of moving the entities in the sketch relative to its origin.

Not strictly on this subject, but if you need to copy a sketch from one part to another then use "Insert -> Sketch From Drawing". It has the advantage of preserving the relative origin of the entities in the sketch plane. Copy and Paste also works, but without the origin being preserved.

Regards Attila

Thanks for your replies.

I'm not entirely au fait with the concepts really, coming from a simple 2D drawing background.

I've had a look at help and top-down modelling, and though it sounds like what I'm trying to do, I can't really see how I'd implement it.

Let me describe my task, and then maybe someone could advise the best method..

I have designed 3 circuit boards that are to fit into a milled housing. From the circuit board design program I can export a dxf carring the board outline and fixing hole dimensions and positions. I'd like to use this to create a sketch that can cut out the pocket for the circuit board, and also cut all the holes for the fixing screws. Then I have coaxial connectors that come in thru the side to join onto some of the circuit boards. I can model the connectors up so I have the fixing hole size and positions and position of the bit that has to touch the boards. I'd like to use that model to define the position of the holes to fit them.

I have a rough overall size of the housing in mind, but ultimately it is defined by the circuit boards.

What procedure should I adopt?

thanks