Log books / lab books

[qczech]

Hello everyone.

I am a second year EEE student. At university we keep laboratory record books for every subject. The point is to note everything you do at the bench. Include some observations, relevant printouts, conclusions and anything that you might later find useful. The idea sounds pretty handy. Gives you an insight to projects done years back.

I am wondering how do hobbyists approach this matter. Do you keep log books? If not, do you wish you did?

How about professionals? Are you requested to keep log books like that in the industry?

Regards.
q

[c4757p]

I am wondering how do hobbyists approach this matter. Do you keep log books? If not, do you wish you did?

Every time I finish a project, I prepare documentation for it as if I were preparing a software project (I come from a software background). I describe in detail how everything works, why I chose this and that, all the way to things like "why is this resistor through-hole", "why that capacitor must have at least this much ESR", charts of poles and zeros, etc. This way, I make sure I understand every little bit of it and there is nothing that's just there because "oh look, this works".

Not quite a log, but I think it accomplishes a similar purpose.

I do not log everything that happens at the bench. It is of no use to me to note that I dumped a bag of 200 PN2907 on the floor and saw once again that Ohm's law does, in fact, work.

[Bored@Work]

How about professionals? Are you requested to keep log books like that in the industry?

A requirement in many US companies, because of the US patent law. The lab notebooks are there to prove when something was invented. The US has "first to invent", while the rest of the world uses "first to file" in patent law. This is about to change in the US, so the requirement might vanish in the future in US companies.

Even without the patent issue it is still a good idea if you do lab work. It can give you a "competetive advantage" over your colleauges when you can redo and reconstruct things quicker or at all.

This is independent of project documentation. Project documentation is often top-down,  and summarizes, while your lab notebook is about the details here and now.

Edit: Of course the US just moving to "first to file" would be to easy. In two days they move to a mixture sytem "first inventor to file" with a special definition of inventor. So the lab notebooks might not be a thing of the past.

[c4757p]

Why do I have the feeling that this will not just not decrease complexity and bureaucracy, but significantly increase it? Just in time for me to finish school and get out into the industry, too. 

[EEVblog]

Hello everyone.

I am a second year EEE student. At university we keep laboratory record books for every subject. The point is to note everything you do at the bench. Include some observations, relevant printouts, conclusions and anything that you might later find useful. The idea sounds pretty handy. Gives you an insight to projects done years back.

I am wondering how do hobbyists approach this matter. Do you keep log books? If not, do you wish you did?

I have a lab book that's not in the lab :->
The problem is I'm always working on projects at different locations (the lab, home, work (when I worked)) so I was not disciplined enough to take my lab notebook with me. The result was you get lazy and never end up using it. You end up writing stuff down on post-it notes with the intention off adding it to the lab book later, but of course you never do. Yeah, I could have multiple lab notebooks, but you know...

Lately I've started a Google Doc for each project, and jot down notes into that at whatever location I'm working at. Pretty handy.

How about professionals? Are you requested to keep log books like that in the industry?

Yes, common requirement at the large military and commercial companies I've worked for.
Altium, no. Documentation, what's that? 

Dave.

[EEVblog]

I am wondering how do hobbyists approach this matter. Do you keep log books? If not, do you wish you did?

I have a lab book that's not in the lab :->
The problem is I'm always working on projects at different locations (the lab, home, work (when I worked)) so I was not disciplined enough to take my lab notebook with me. The result was you get lazy and never end up using it. You end up writing stuff down on post-it notes with the intention off adding it to the lab book later, but of course you never do. Yeah, I could have multiple lab notebooks, but you know...

Lately I've started a Google Doc for each project, and jot down notes into that at whatever location I'm working at. Pretty handy.
Test results and design calcs/ideas are two of the most valuable types of info to jot down.

How about professionals? Are you requested to keep log books like that in the industry?

Yes, common requirement at the large military and commercial companies I've worked for.
Altium, no. Documentation, what's that? 

Dave.

[blewisjr]

I do not want to ninja the thread from the OP but I do not want to start a new thread since this is similar.

I am getting to the point where I am starting to design my own little projects.  No PCB yet just breadboard.  I want to keep track of everything and was wondering if a design/log/lab book would be better or CAD + word document.  I will only be doing schematics and notes, however, I am still learning to read the schematic notation.

[Jon Chandler]

I use Dropbox for projects.  There's a folder for each project, and under that folders for the schematic, circuit board and software.  Any relevant documentation, difficult-to-locate data sheets, drawings and so on get stored in the project folder.

This way, I can (usually) find all the info about a project, I can access if from any of my  computers (or a web browser from anywhere) and the files are alway in sync, and it's backed up in case of hardware failure or stupidity.

Dropbox is pretty amazing.  I'll work on something upstairs, walk downstairs to the lab and the latest revisions already show up on the other computer.  Dropbox is pretty good with handling files opened from more than one place at a time and stores a "conflicted copy of..." if an open file is changed from somewhere else.

[c4757p]

I use Dropbox for projects.

Dropbox is wonderful. I keep all of my files in Dropbox - all my computers run Linux, and it's really easy on Linux to set up an encrypted file system container (encfs, for the curious) and use symbolic links to tie everything into the main directory structure. Even my configuration files sync, including browser bookmarks and locally installed (mostly command-line) utilities. Configuring a new computer or OS install just basically consists of installing Dropbox and running the setup script stored in it.

Not to derail the thread and turn it into a discussion of how I organize my computer, but I thought I'd throw Dropbox a +1 for this kind of thing. It's nice to be able to sit on the sofa working on a schematic on my laptop, then walk over to the workbench and it's all there on the workbench computer, ready to go. It's a backup, too - the data is broadcast to multiple computers and is in Dropbox itself, and if I ever thought that some corrupted files were accidentally synced to Dropbox, I could just unplug a computer's network connection, boot it up and grab the files.

[Circuitous]

As much as I prefer to keep everything typed up online, when I'm at the bench it seems to be much more convenient to write in a notebook.  I have a keyboard and monitors at the bench, but the notebook seems to be simpler for making quick notes and sketches.

I ended up using a Livescribe Sky pen and notebook for notes, which syncs to Evernote.
http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/smartpen/wifi-smartpen/

This gives me a written notebook at the bench, but my notes are also stored online and available to me anywhere.

[c4757p]

That looks really nice. Bit expensive, but I may consider one.

[Circuitous]

yes, a bit pricey.  But, very easy to use, simple to set it up to sync to a notebook in Evernote.  I just write my notes and at the end of the evening I tap the "sync" icon in the notebook and it uploads everything.

I set it up to export each page to Evernote as an image, that way it is text searchable in Evernote.  It does a surprisingly good job of recognizing my terrible handwriting (even I have trouble reading it).

[JoeyP]

How about professionals? Are you requested to keep log books like that in the industry?

It varies quite a lot by company. I worked for one small company where there was so little documentation that we joked that we were probably the only company that had to reverse-engineer its own products! I also worked in a large company on government-sponsored space projects, where the documentation was so dense that everything moved at the speed of tar, and we needed to maintain or own local forest to supply the paper.

[Smokey]

I keep all electronic documents in a Subversion version control repository as I work on them.  This is especially true for PCB and Schematic work.  You get the built in timestamped version history and also I try to make really detailed commit notes about what I did since the last commit, why I did it, and anything else relevant to that commit.  It's all searchable and a good record of development.  When I have to do reports about lab work, those reports go in the SVN repo too.

Keeping an actual lab notebook (or something to keep you from losing your notes) is always a good idea.  It's amazing how many times you take some measurement with a pass/fail number in mind and if it passes you forget what the actual measurement was.  Then later you have to redo that measurement when you need the actual number and didn't write it down the first time.  You never know when some new bit of information will make you reanalyze some data you took before from a new perspective.  If you don't have that stuff written down somewhere, you have to redo it.

I worked for one small company where there was so little documentation that we joked that we were probably the only company that had to reverse-engineer its own products!

Been there.  At least it's good practice. 

[Mattylad]

Keeping a log is good practise, been there - done that.

However many companies push their (understaffed) engineers so hard with too many projects, too short timescales and too little resources that log keeping can often be left out of a project (unfortunately).

If you do keep a log then there are good reasons to keep it electronically with the rest of the projects data, storing piles of logbooks is not likely to be top of a beancounters list and they can easily be thrown away. Assuming adequate backups then electronic logs are easier to store, recall, share etc.

[madshaman]

I'm a hobbyist and I keep a logbook.  Just a plain notebook I always keep on my bench.

I actually find pen and paper easier than using a computer, and I'm a computer guy.  I think it's up to the individual, fwiw, I find the more convenient I make something, the more likely I am to do it, others might find a computer more convenient, and for them, that's the right solution.

[Neilm]

I use a mixture of notebook and PC for every thing I do at work. If I'm taking results I'll enter them straight onto the PC. I draw rough diagrams and thoughts in the notebook. If I'm about to write something more software (logic for FPGA, PC application) I will quite often "sketch" it in the notebook to get an idea how it will work.

[ivan747]

I have tried to make a lab notebook, but I never bother to learn what's the proper format. RIght now I have a small notebook full of idea but I don't document my work. I should. Does anybody know a good primer on lab notebooks we can use? 

[bradleytron]

I use a mixture of notebook and PC for every thing I do at work. If I'm taking results I'll enter them straight onto the PC. I draw rough diagrams and thoughts in the notebook. If I'm about to write something more software (logic for FPGA, PC application) I will quite often "sketch" it in the notebook to get an idea how it will work.

I tend to follow this approach, "...mixture of notebook and PC", I often augment my notes with material I find on the internet like journal articles, data sheets, etc. I don't think you need to have a special way of keeping hard copy notes though, just be consistent about how you do it. I like to use a regular hard bound note book, I get mine  from the university book store, and I make sure to include the date and a short project descriptive title in the margin each time I make an entry. For some folks it is difficult to get into the habit but I cannot tell you how many times I needed to refer back to my notes.

B

[Bored@Work]

I have tried to make a lab notebook, but I never bother to learn what's the proper format. RIght now I have a small notebook full of idea but I don't document my work. I should. Does anybody know a good primer on lab notebooks we can use? 

A quick google https://www.google.de/search?q=keeping+lab+notebook reveals several sources. They show the American style, which is heavily driven by their patent laws.

[JuiceKing]

I am wondering how do hobbyists approach this matter. Do you keep log books? If not, do you wish you did?

I keep a notebook to log my experiments and observations. More often than not, I try variations or explore extreme conditions and get results I can't explain. These are the most important things to capture because I like to revisit them later, when my understanding has improved.

A great advantage of working with even a cheap DSO is that you can capture screenshots of waveforms and measurements into a computer. I have yet found a way to marry that with the convenience and flexibility of taking handwritten notes at the bench. Printing, cutting and taping them into the notebook doesn't work well and is a nuisance, and I'm way too lazy to transfer notes into the computer.