Coming back home from Uni I had some time to build version 2 of Pi-Lock. I was thinking: if I need to mass produce these devices, then I can’t solder wires into a prototype board for each unit. I therefore looked into PCBs (printed circuit boards). There are a lot of companies around the world which have a prototype service, and I found a very helpful review of a few services on Ladyada.com. In the end I choose ExpressPCB.com, which provide their own software (windows only, sorry mac users) to design your board. Here is a picture of my design:
After no more than 5 days (3 Business days + the weekend), the PCB boards arrived in a set of 3, with some great craftsmanship. The following two pictures are what the final product looked like.
And the final product: