Can't set any constraints

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to learn Fusion 360 and purchased the "Power Guide" book from CADArtifex.  One of the exercises has you creating this drawing.  The tutorial reads "Note that even after applying the dimensions as shown, the sketch is not fully defined and some of its entities appear in blue."  Correct so far!  Then is reads "You need to apply the required constrains to make the sketch fully defined."

The tutorial then goes on to tell you to select the EQUALS constraint, and then click on the two 50mm circles.  It is at that point that nothing works.

When I click on the left circle, it turns bright blue, as if it has been selected.  Then I attempt to click on the right circle, and nothing happens.  The help message next to the cursor read "Select other geometries."  I can't select anything.  This is true of no matter which type of constraint I try to use.  I have "Show Constraints" enabled.

I'm running V2.0.9512 on Win7-Pro 64-bit.  I know Win7 is no longer supported, but I don't believe that is the issue here.

[jeff_strater]

you'll need to share your design to receive an accurate answer.  One possibility:  Do you have more than one sketch in your design?  Constraints must be applied to geometries in the same sketch.

[Anonymous]

It appears there were two sketches, one of which was completely empty and the other had the drawing I posted.  I found that by opening the "Sketches" listing in the "Browser" on the left.  I don't understand how or why there can be multiple sketches, apparently superimposed on each each other.  And if one was empty, why was it preventing me from setting constrains on objects in the other?

In any case, I deleted the second empty sketch.  Now it appears I can set constraints on the first.  But that leads to the next problem.  Most of the drawing is still in blue lines, which apparently means sketch is not "fully defined".  What does that mean?  All the lines and curves are there and where I want them.  How do you know what is missing?  Is there an error list?

Regarding "sharing":  I have no idea what that means.  I found something under File->Share->Public Share, and it produced this:

https://a360.co/35dHxs8

I have to say, the user interface on Fusion 360 is simply one of the worst I've experienced in years.  I'm coming from TurboCad, and things that I can do in seconds with it take enormous numbers of steps with Fusion.

[jeff_strater]

yes, that is one way to share the design.  Thank you for sharing it.  I can access it now.

Several problems in this sketch.  One is points that are not connected.  The white dots indicate points that are not connected to multiple curves:

this is also why profiles are not recognized in this sketch (no shaded areas that can be selected to Extrude).  So, the first step is to fix those.  The Coincident constraint is the way to do that.  Then, the process is to find out what is not constrained, and add dimensions/constraints to constrain it.  I usually do that by dragging blue geometry, seeing what moves, and then pinning that down with a dimension.  There are probably many ways to constrain this sketch, this is just one of them:

[Anonymous]

Well, that was fascinating to watch.  Thanks, but holy-cow, who would EVER know to do all those things?

I tried initially making the point coincident, as you suggested, but as you showed in the video, that was FAR from sufficient.  I ended up just erasing the whole thing and starting over, which worked.  Why the first sketch ended up up being so "unconstrained" is a mystery.  So far, that has happened a lot.  (Both the mystery part and the starting-over part.)

By the way, in TurboCad, you just drag a box around everything and click "Group".  Bang.  Everything is locked together and can't be modified.  One click.

By the way, in case anyone is listening, there is a big problem with out-of-date Fusion 360 tutorials on the Net.  I know the company can't control anything outside of itself, but there are many questions within these forums where the answer might have been true in 2017, but the interface is so different now that the screen shots or step-by-step instructions just don't work.  I always try to do a forum search first before posting a question, but I found myself wasting a lot of time reading answers and examining screen shots that simply didn't match what is on my screen.

Thanks again, Carl D.

[jeff_strater]

you can do that in Fusion, too.  Not "group", but Fix.  Instantly grounds the entire sketch.  But, usually that is not recommended, because you might want to actually change some of those dimensions later.  That's kind of the whole point of having a constrained, parametric sketch