circle won't unturn blue?

The forum keeps saying I can't post anything because I'm not a Gold Member? Anyway, the 2d sketching video at 4:37 says to draw a circle. The trainer does so and just moves on no problem. Mine, using the exact same steps, draws the circle and then it just stays blue. I can't get it to do anything else. Esc key, other tools, nothing. The form here won't let me attach images. :(

Hi Geoff,

A blue profile means the sketch isn't fully defined, where a black profile means it is.

Without being fully defined you'll be able to click and drag the profile and move it in someway to see how it is free to move.

With a circle there are 2 areas to think about. The location of centre of the circle (horizontal and vertical) and the size of the circle.

In this example I drop the centre on the origin point, and then I set the diameter of the circle with a dimension. This fully defines it.

If you're missing either of these then it will stay blue. Make sure you are dropping the centre on the origin.

A lot of people will never fully defining sketches, and that usually works out fine, but sometimes it can allow errors to creep in so I recommend trying to fully define a sketch as best practice.

I literally followed your example click for click and it still stays blue. Which means I can't proceed to the next steps you describe. I still don't get what "defined" means.

is the "snap" preference on in your sketch palette? or is the 3D sketch preference turned on?

If you place the centre point of the circle on the origin point and dimension the diameter then it must be fully defined, as there is no possible way that it can move.

Try clicking and dragging a point on the circle or the centre point.

You can upload a screenshot and I'll be able to tell quickly what the issue is

Here is a screenshot of it.

The circle is black. So it's fully defined.

Don't worry about the shaded blue inside, this is just showing the circle forms a closed profile.

Ok, so now I can't use the = tool on the fillets. It just throws an error.

That because each of you fillet's has been made separately, and you can see they all have R40 dimensions on them already.

So if they each already have their radius dimensioned at 40mm, then you can't then go and say these need to be equal dimensions.

That's called overconstraining.

2 options, either delete all but one of the R40 dimensions, and then use the equal constraint, or leave it as it is, and determine what the rest of the sketch needs to be fully defined

I think this is me not understanding what you're doing in the video. Are you not creating each filet and then and then going back with the =? Doesn't the filet have to already exist in order to click the = on it?

I can't remember the exact order I did things in the video. But I'm trying to push you to understand the fundamental ideas of what's going on so you can use this for any application, rather than just being able to follow click for click.

With the fillet tool active you can click multiple corners at once, and this will automatically make them all equal the radius you set (equal constraint applied for you). If you do each corner one by one, then they will all be dimensioned independently, like what you have.

Yes the fillets need to exist for you do use the equals constraint between them, but this isn't necessary if you created them all in one step.

I think in the module, when I trimmed out the unwanted sections the equal constraints dropped off, so I went back and re-added them in.

> With the fillet tool active you can click multiple corners at once, and this will automatically make them all equal the radius you set

This doesn't seem to be true for me. Once I click on a corner, if I click on the next one the tool acts like it just turns off.

See the attached file. Can you do this?