Fabrication Lab
Fabrication Lab
About Fabrication Lab
Fabrication lab of the Department of Architecture (IIT Roorkee) is equipped with advanced fabrication equipment: FDM 3D printer, Laser cutting machine & CNC machine - and hand and power tools for woodworking and metalworking. Students are encouraged to employ these for their projects and skill development.
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News and Announcements
19-20
October 2024
Training sessions during 19th and 20th October in the Fabrication Lab (Ground Floor, Annexe Building, DAP).
The Department of Architecture and Planning is organizing a training session on advanced fabrication technologies on 19th and 20th October, 2024 in the Fabrication Lab (Ground Floor, Annexe Building, DAP). The session will briefly cover the theoretical principles underlining 3D printing, CNC and laser cutting machine operation, and will focus on hands-on training for these technologies. The training sessions are mainly oriented towards the students of this institute, and interested staff/faculty members can also participate.
Publications
People
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Prof. Smriti Saraswat
Assistant Professor
smriti.saraswat@ar.iitr.ac.in
Architecture Dept.
01332-284770
Cultural & Arch. Heritage; Narratives; Experimental Architecture; Material Culture; Interior Architecture; Craft & Tech.; Trad. Knowledge Systems; Indigenous Communities; Craft-Design-Architecture Collaborations; Skill Development; Sustainable Livelihoods
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Mr. Rakesh Raushan
Technical Assistant
Fabrication Laboratory
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Mr. Varun Singh
Junior Laboratory Assistant
varun.mar@iitr.ac.in
Fabrication Laboratory
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Mr. Narendra Saini
Lab Assistant
Fabrication Laboratory
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Atul Anand Jha
PhD Candidate
aa_jha@ar.iitr.ac.in
Department of Architecture and Planning
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Abhishek Verma
PhD Candidate
abhishek_v@ar.iitr.ac.in
Department of Architecture and Planning
List of Equipment in Fabrication Lab
More about using the Advanced Fabrication facilities available
3D Printer
Laser Cutter
CNC Milling Machine and Thermocol Cutter
Description
The Lab has a Material Extrusion based 3D printer. Click here to know more about how this technology works.
Link to Product Page
Here's the link to the manufacturer's page of the exact model that we have. You can check out the specifications for the printer.
Overview of the fabrication process
a) You have your 3D model which you need to print, you import your model into CURA where it will be prepared for printing. The model needs to be a solid model prepared using 3Ds max, rhino etc. (sketchup won't do - disclaimer!; 3D CAD will work though). Here's a useful resource for pre-pared models if you just want to try your hands at making something and getting started
b) The software needs to be configured for your printer if you want to prepare the files on your own systems. You can always visit the lab to understand the configuration settings, or if there's enough demand the configurations will be made available on this website.
c) Executing the gcode and 3d printing is again the non-trivial aspect of it. However, 3D printing will require trial and error as there are permutations of configurations that the users would have to try. For any advanced queries, you can either contact the vendors directly by getting in touch with the student coordinators, or you can head over to the technicians in the tinkering lab as they have a lot of experience with 3D printing.
Relevant links
1. Ultimaker Cura - software for turning 3D geometry into machine readable & executable gcode files.
2. A youtube tutorial - getting started guide for beginners for Cura.
Description
The lab has a laser cutting machine which can be used to cut through cardboard, MDF boards, thin metal sheets etc.
Overview of the fabrication process
a) You have a CAD file which has the outline for the different shapes that you want to cut in the material of your choice. You turn your drawing into a dxf.
b) You import that dxf into RDWorks, you specify which lines need to be cut at what intensity of the laser, what laser power, and what speed etc.
c) The software turns that information into a format recognized by the printer, and you can execute the cutting command. Executing the file from the printer is a trivial task. The bulk of the work is done in this software, which students can just download and prepare the files in their own laptops.
Relevant links
Description
The lab has a CNC Milling machine and Thermolocol cutter which are sourced from the same company (SVP Laser) and work in a similar manner.
Overview of the fabrication process
The milling machine and thermocol cutter require vector input generated using AutoCAD and other CAD based software. The geometry has to be imported in the software provided with the machines, which is a custom software and only available in the lab computer. After importing the geometry, it's a very simple process of assigning the speed at which the needle should run. Customising the needle, as well as the cutting depth is possible. The machine can work with MDF and thin metal sheets. Just a word of caution, the dimensions of the working area may be a constraint for very large models.