Confusion about component activation.

[davidCWLJV]

Hello.

I do get why I should activate components but I ran into a situation which makes me climb the walls of my apartment.

While designing a plastic rig for a cellphone the design process went on just fine, for several hours during which time I added 2 already made and saved components.

Then a couple of hours of designing onwards I thought I was adding another component but as it turned out I right-clicked and chose "add to current design" on another parametric model.

I don't see why that should be a problem, but in the end I had added both a parametric model and a component but inside another component where I didn't want them so I deleted them and chose the top component or whatever it i called, the tab you activate to concern the hole file system for that design.

Now comes the weird stuff, now I can't activate any components anymore, the activation button doesn't appear at all, if I create a new component I can have that activate in it's creation but I can not activate any of the other 5 components.

I am very confused and don't know what is going on.

at some point I undid all steps I had taken before I aded the parametric model and then it seems to work again but even when I do it as I wanted and added a component to the root of the design the same thing happens so now I can't continue working on any of the components.

Does any one knows what is going on?

I can't solve this, I've been trying to do so for the last 3 hours and now I wish I was very rich so that I could afford to bash my laptop with a baseball bat until it was in dozens of peaces.

Seriously wouldn't it be wonderful if you could solve your frustration that way when software's are messing with you.

[TMC.Engineering]

Attach your model and maybe make a screencast of your problem.  

[jeff_strater]

Hi @davidCWLJV,

More than likely, the components you cannot activate are externally referenced components.  Those cannot be activated.  Look for the little "chain" icon in the component.  Only locally-defined components can be activated.  This is because component activation determines where new objects like sketches or work geometry goes, and so is inherently a write operation.  Today, Fusion does not allow you to edit external components, other than by opening them in a new tab of their own.

Here is a small screencast showing that local components can be activated, while external ones cannot.

And, as @TMC.Engineering says, if you share a screencast or the model itself, it will be much easier to help you.

Jeff

[TrippyLighting]

Based on your description my guess would be that you picked up a tool and bypassed the instructions that go with it.

One of the most important concepts of Fusion 360 is the difference between a component and a body.

Once you're through that, you should review Fusion 360 R.U.L.E #1.

[davidCWLJV]

I studied the Fusion 360 component system and I could not solve the problem, it ended in the creation of a completely new design and this time I manage to create components and switch between them without any problem.

I then later when back to the design with which I had trouble just to see if now that I think I know how to work with components I maybe could understand what was wrong but it feels as if something very strange has happened to that project because I simply can't solve it.

It doesn't matter since I recreated the design but it was weird.

Thanks for your replies.