Forge.Labs

Forge.Labs is the equipment side of Forge. It runs seven centres across seven cities of Tamil Nadu, which Forge calls the largest network of Fab Labs accredited by MIT's Fab Foundation in India. The Coimbatore headquarters holds HWjunction; four other centres run as InnovateTN labs with the state's technical-education department; the FORTs are Forge's open industrial innovation ecosystems.

What you get

• Product Innovation Labs across eight industrial technology domains, from industrial robotics and electronics design through industrial fabrication, additive manufacturing and cyber-physical control systems
• Product Compliance Labs for the testing a hardware product needs before formal certification — vibration, sound, coating thickness, dimensional measurement, flaw detection and ingress protection on the mechanical side, Hipot, earth, leakage, harmonic, battery and motor testing on the electrical side, and flying probe and EMC/EMI testing on the electronics side
• Pilot Production Facilities for low-volume manufacturing, covering PCB design, fabrication and assembly, milling, welding, sheet metal cutting, turning, vacuum casting and dough moulding
• Resident technical experts and external mentors, plus product advisory

Who can apply

• Hardware startups, industrial companies, MSMEs and student innovators — Forge names all four as users of the labs
• Forge publishes no access criteria, no booking system and no price list

How to apply: Each of the three lab groups has a Get In Touch button, and all of them go to Forge's general enquiry page. Name the machine or the test you need, because nothing on the site tells you what is available where.