How to dimension 2 circle centre points

[lemelman]

I'm using Win10 and am an experienced user of TurboCad. I'm trying to learn Fusion 360.

I've drawn two circles and want to set the distance between the centre points (CPs) to 1mm, but am at a loss as to how to do it. My first thought was to use Sketch Dimensions but it's greyed out. I've tried many things, and at one time (don't know how) managed to get into Sketch Dimensions, when I then selected the two CPs and changed the dimension between them to 1mm. The dimension changed, but the the circles didn't move. I deleted that step.

As mentioned, I don't know how I managed to get into Sketch Dimensions, and I can't repeat it.

I know I'm doing something wrong, but can't figure out what.

Can you help please?

[brucehuang]

Welcome to Fusion360. From your screenshot, I saw the sketh is not activated. Currently, dimension commands is only available at sketch environment. You can click the sketch browser entry, use "Edit Sketch" command in its context menu to activate the sketch. Then you can use dimension to define the distance of two circles. Please have a try and let us know if you have any other questions.

Bruce (Fusion Development Team)

[lemelman]

Thanks for your reply Bruce.

I was able to get into Sketch Dimensions and select the two CPs, which showed a separation of 45mm. I changed it to 1mm and the dimension changed, but neither circle moved.

I'm confused.

[HughesTooling]

The problem is you've constrained the circle to a point not to the centre of the other circle, how you've unconstrained the point i don't know. Can you start a new sketch and see if you can do it again, normally if you draw a circle at the origin the point is constrained to the origin and you have to delete the constraint to move the circle.

If you've found a way to make this fail can you make a screencast to show what you're doing.

Mark

[lemelman]

Hi Mark,

I took your advise and started afresh with a new drawing, which now seems to be working.

Before I did that I tried several things, and managed to move the lefthand circle to 1mm to the left of the RH one.  What is the red dot? I don't remember how it appeared, and certainly didn't purposely create it. I tried to delete to delete it, but failed.

As you can see, I'm a total newbe and its a big change from TurboCad.

How do I remove a constraint?

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

The purple dots are projected points, if you draw a circle at the origin for example the origin is projected into the sketch as a fixed point and you should not be able to move it.

In your example here, you also have a horizontal constraint that can create the point at the origin as well.

What's a real puzzle is how the purple point can move, I tried creating the circles and constraint in different orders and manually deleted constraints and I can't move the point from the origin like you have!

If you still have the design can you export the f3d file and attach because I think support would like to see what's going on.

Mark

[lemelman]

Hi Mark,

I'm sorry, I didn't save the drawing and have no idea what I did wrong.

I hope its not unethical to change the thread, but once I got  the two circles moving properly I tried drawing the profile of a piece of decking wood.

In the attached screenshot, I want to duplicate the hilighted section in a 1-axis rectangular array, but although the rectangular pattern tool wants me to select the curves, it doesn't accept the boundaries of the profile I want to propergate. I've been singularly unsuccessful in creating the required profile as a series of lines. Any suggestions?