best way to 'grow' projected holes

[rprovideo]

There might be an easy answer to this.

I need to create a faceplate for a lot of connectors on a PCB. I can project the outline of the connectors to the sketch, and then extrude the sheet metal and voilá, I have a perfect cutout. Except that most connectors will fit too tight. I need to grow/scale/offset all those lines by half a millimeter to ensure confortable fits. I found that some complex draws I cannot scale or offset, and while I can offset simple circles, the original line remains which bugs me. I could also break the link to the projection, but then if we move connectors on the PCB, these wont follow, so its less ideal. Is there a solution to all of this?

thanks

Balazs

[jeff_strater]

I would use sketch offset for this.  To get around the problem of the original projections getting in the way, I would convert to construction curves.  The curves will still be there, but they will not participate in profile recognition.  They will be fully associative, though.

The screencast shows how this works on an offset sketch plane, just to make the illustration easier.  Hope it helps

[jhackney1972 · Accepted solution]

I would use the Offset Face command to add the hole clearance you desire.  Since the holes and features are projected, this process will not interfere with the updating of the hole size and the applied clearance should things change.  Screencast will explain.

[rprovideo]

thank you thats a perfect solution! and it works without going back to sketch mode. Awesome.