I am working on two assemblies for a fixture that holds partsduring a milling operation. A component called the "base plate" iscommon to both assemblies. In the first assembly, several externalreferences to other components are used to define locations ofthreaded mounting holes in the base plate. Additional mountingholes are needed in the base plate for mounting other components inthe second assembly, so I wanted to "trace" one of these componentsonto the base plate. To do this, in the second assembly I selectedthe base plate and clicked Edit Component. I then opened a newsketch on the top plane of the base plate. Next, I selected theedges of the component that I wanted to trace and then clickedConvert. A message about not being able to create externalreferences popped up and the Convert operation failed. First, howcan I get around this? Second, how does converting sketch create anexternal reference?

SolidworksAssemblies