Scale after Pasting?

[FLHX]

I occasionally download drawings from web sites, (McMaster -Carr, Grainger, etc) for parts that I'm using.  They make it easy: they offer drawings in multiple formats, (I use .DWG), although there's also .DXF.

The drawings open right up no problem.  Here's the problem:  What I see almost all the time is that when I copy and  paste those drawings into my drawing, the scale is wrong.  

Specifically:

Say the original drawing has a feature with two holes, and the original drawing shows those holes as 1 inch apart, center to center.  I paste that drawing into my drawing, and when I dimension it, the holes are never 1 inch apart.  They're some completely different unpredictable dimension,

So I guess I'm wondering what exactly I should be doing differently?  Is there a way to paste differently so the dimensions come down right, or is there something else I need to do so I can use those drawings without all the hassle I have now?

Thanks!

[pendean]

Are the drawings you downloaded actually to scale? and/or drawn at 1:1? and the scale you want, metric vs. imperial?

In my experience about 25% of downloaded free blocks from manufacturer websites are NTS (Not To Scale) and small print somewhere (on the website or in the file) pretty much says so.

[FLHX]

They say they're to scale.

[Charles_Shade]

...and the second part?

Imperial or Metric?

Are the Units the same?

[FLHX]

Yup, units are the same.  Sorry I forgot to mention that!

[pendean]

Post one or two, let's all have a look.

[FLHX]

See attached.

I was able to use both of these, but had to rescale them.

[Charles_Shade]

You are scaling too many things and that is leading to bad information

Everything in Modelspace should be 1:1 and if you need to Scale the Plot then you do this with a Viewport in Paperspace.

Between the Object being scaled some amount and then trying to show the correct dimension by changing the Dim Scale Linear you are introducing minor variations in the expected dimension and trying to hide those with your Unit precision set to .125.

You should have something more along the lines of the attached.

Please mark any response as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question.
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[FLHX]

Well, here's what I did, and it worked:

Instead of downloading the .DWG files, I download the .DXF files.  I can easily convert them to .DWG using Any DWG DXF converter, and when I do, they're all set in scale.

Go figure.

[Charles_Shade · Accepted solution]

Glad you found a solution.

IMHO you have an underlaying issue with not keeping entities at 1:1 in Modelspace.

Please mark any response as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question.
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[YoSmite]

So I need to convert my DXF files to DWG in a third party program?

[YoSmite]

I mean svg to dwg?

[pendean]

Autodesk doesn't provide an SVG translator in AutoCAD/LT products.

[YoSmite]

Is there any way to scale svg or am I s.o.l?

[YoSmite]

I painstakingly hand traced it and then I could scale. Seems to expensive for customers. Any suggestions?

[pendean]

Lots of tips out there on how to scale an SVG, like these:
http://css-tricks.com/scale-svg/
http://answers.squarespace.com/questions/15590/auto-scaling-of-svg-files-like-images-in-image-block

One of many converters out there: https://www.reaconverter.com/convert/svg_to_dwg.html