System Electronica Tour
System Electronica Factory Tour
The System Electronica factory is where the PCBs (Printed circuit boards) for both the Arduino boards and many others are manufactured. In the factory, electronic components are set onto PCB Boards, which serve as a platform as well as a way of electrically connecting the various parts that comprise an electrical system. The PCB file is what is given to manufacturers as an instruction set to make the board, and is one of the few items that, if distributed to any PCB factory in the world, will render the same object (Banzi, personal communication, July 12, 2007). This PCB layout is key to the Arduino's ability to be open source. Hardware has to be able to be able to be modified and returned to the community in order to be considered open, not many people have the capacity to retool hardware, but the ability to change the PCB layout, and pass it to someone else who can build and test it is what makes it possible to have open source hardware. Banzi notes in this tour how smaller companies (such as System Electronica) are more favourable than larger companies in fostering innovation because of their willingness to take part in this process on the manufacturing side.