Constraining a imported objject

[joe]

I want to apply a concentric constraint to the imported stepper motor and hole in my component . I also want to get the four stepper motor mounting holes into my component. How do I change the opacity of my component so I can see the holes?

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

It's good you came and asked early on in your design.

1. All your discrete parts should be components, not just bodies. The Stepper Motor is a component, but the angle bracket is not a component but a body on the same hierarchy/level as the stepper motor.
2. The sketches you used to design the bracket should all be part of that bracket component. I am afraid you'll have to re-design it applying Fusion 360 R.U.L.E #1: Before doing anything, create a component and activate it. Activating a component ensures that all objects created after activation such as sketches, bodies, construction geometry etc. are created in that component.
3. Fusion 360 joints can only be applied to components, no to bodies. There is no concentricity constraint, but you'd apply a rigid joint between the two components.
4. before doing so, you should ground one of the components, so the assembly does not just float in midair. I'd grond the bracket. 
5. You also have one yellow icon in the timeline indicating a warning. Try to avoid these and fix them as soon as they appear. In this particular case you can just delete it.

[joe]

I thought I had created a component first. What is "component1:1"? That is the first thing I did when I opened the new file. where did I go wrong? Everything seems to be under the component 1:1

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

Yes, you did.

Then you imported/inserted the external component into your existing component, making it an assembly.

For the braket you should have created a second component in that assembly.

If you're looking for a quick solution, you can right-click on the bracket body and select "Make component from body". That component, however, will not contain the sketches you created to make the body. So if you later want to export the bracket to the data panel (save as), maybe for re-use in another design, it will only contain the body, but not the sketches and parametric desigh history. That might be OK for this bracket, but going forward I'd adhere to R.U.L.E #1 😉 It saves a lot of headaches and also will keep the ever growing timeline manageable.

You'll notice that when you activate a component that the timeline shrinks. Activation of a component filters the timeline to show only those items that pertain to that component.

As you design grows that will become very helpful.