Move circles into tangent.

[evanp4509U4JZ]

I found a tutorial on using the tangent restraint to make circles tangent but it changes the size of the circle. Is there a way to "move" a fixed diameter circle to become tangent with another circle or line? I make trim patterns and we use a common radius on all the corners and frequently have "steps" and reversals where I used to just make 2 tangent circles and then run a tangent line off to the next direction change. The fillet corner command works well for line corners but I can't seem to get it to work where I have, say, a .3" offset in a pattern over a .5" distance and we use a .25" radius on all the corners.

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

the easiest way is to dimension the circle diameter first, then apply the tangent constraint.  A circle has multiple degrees of freedom.  If it is fully unconstrained, then the tangent constraint is free to do whatever it decides to satisfy that constraint.  However, if the diameter is constrained to a value, then moving the circle is the only way to satisfy the constraint.

[etfrench · Accepted solution]

Don't forget to constrain the line/curve you're making the circle tangent to

[evanp4509U4JZ]

Thank you both. I finally got some down time to play with this and I'm slowly learning the constraints thing. I wasn't constraining things and they were jumping all over the place seemingly randomly but I know that isn't the case. The stuff that got constrained when I sketched it stayed and the other stuff didn't.

Again, thank you.