How to identify unconstrained elements in a sketch?

[phillip.geiger5VNSY]

I'm about a week into using Fusion360.

I'm now about dozen sketches into a part, and I have just clued in to the fact that little red locks on the sketches are good, and a little yellow pencil is bad. I understand this to mean that a sketch tagged with the pencil is not fully constrained.

Searching has led me to believe that unconstrained elements are blue, and constrained elements are black. And indeed when I make new sketches and put deliberately unconstrained stuff in them, they're blue.

When I go back to edit the sketch with the shameful pencil tag, however, everything is black. I'm not sure why it thinks it's not fully constrained. Is it possible there's a blue line hiding behind a black line from another, overlapping element? Is there a way for me to tell Fusion360 to highlight the unconstrained bits?

I could just redo that sketch and every subsequent thing in the timeline that depends on it, paying attention to constraints as I go, but I'd rather understand how I created the problem in the first place, and why I can't identify it now.

Thank you.

[TheCADWhisperer]

Any white endpoints?

File>Export and Attach *.f3d file here for diagnosis.

Click drag lines/endpoints might be the easiest way to diagnose.

[phillip.geiger5VNSY · Accepted solution]

Yes, there was a dashed black line that had a white endpoint out in space. I'd only been using the line as a horizontal reference, didn't realize that somehow made everything unconstrained.

[chrisplyler]

It might not make EVERYTHING unconstrained. But definitely that POINT isn't constrained.

Honestly, if it's JUST a point on a construction line used as a horizontal reference, as you said, I wouldn't worry about it. That point can move left and right until the cows come home and it won't effect anything important in the rest of your sketch, right? But if you want the little red lock symbol, you'll have to constrain it, probably by adding a length dimension to that construction line.

[phillip.geiger5VNSY]

Correct, it was just a reference line. The position of the endpoint didn't matter so I just stuck it out in space way off to the right.

I'll make a habit of not doing that in the future. The little red locks are pleasing to the eye and it's surely a good habit to keep them that way. I ended up anchoring that line to the edge of the work piece and it all looks good.

Thanks for the help.