EE Favorite Writing Tool

[IntegratedValve]

I'm back 

To initiate a friendly topic, what's your favorite pen you use for designing circuits? Please name brand, type (ballpoint, fountain, roller, gel ink), and color, or maybe pencil.

Cheers!

[Phaedrus]

Some ball point pen I got from one of our vendors a couple years ago. It's objectively a mediocre pen, but it has sentimental value because that company's vice president helped me get my first industry job.

[Noize]

ComputAh!

Or Stanbridge white quill on Vellum.

http://www.britannicrarebreeds.co.uk/breedinfo/duck_stanbridgewhite.php

Just taking the mick! 

[tszaboo]

Staedtler pigment liner 0.3 and Uni-ball ultra fine black.

[dexters_lab]

Lol, ok...

Pilot Hi-Techpoint V5 Black

[c4757p]

Cheapo Bic or similar. Anything but those freaking "gel pens" I have a set of Staedtler pens with different tip sizes for hand-drawn diagrams that need to look decent.

Black for drawing and blue for annotation. Nothing else. Red is for grading papers, green ink is always kind of dry, and all other colors indicate that the user is twelve years old

I used to do a lot more writing when I was majoring in math. I used a cheap Lamy fountain pen. Nice and easy on the wrist. Can't be bothered now that I don't write as much. I do miss it sometimes, but not as much as I don't miss cleaning and refilling.

[olsenn]

I use Alvin or Staedtler mechanical pencils

[IntegratedValve]

Papermate ballpoint flexgrip elite, black ink only!

[free_electron]

TUL pens any model although i like the soft grips best.

[Oscilloscope]

I use a Pentel GraphGear 1000 mechanical pencil (0.5mm)

[Noize]

Slaves or Blood. They are essential.

[Noize]

Actually with me it is just plain old boring bic. No nubile slaves for me 

[david77]

Parker Jotter stainless steel or simple traditional Staedler pencils on graph paper.

[Vgkid]

I haven't used a pen in years. I usually use a #2 pencil, Cross .9mm mech pencil (home only), or a .7mm pentel.

[fcb]

Uni Kuratoga 0.5mm

[Noize]

Uzi 9mm

[david77]

Why am I thinking of a dot matrix printer now?

[SeanB]

Uzi 9mm

Just do not drop it if it is loaded, you may live to regret it.

Myself I use either one of a whole lot of Bic pens I got from my bank by asking them, or I often use a HB pencil, or even a carpenters pencil.

[qno]

Pentel P205

[theonetruestickman]

Sometimes a 0.5mm mechanical pencil, but more often an archive-quality felt tip art pen. The Pigma Microns are awesome, though I've currently got a Faber Castell in my pocket. That gets used for everything that goes in my notebooks - sketches, mechanical diagrams, writing, you name it. I find it's a nicer feel, less bleed, and much more consistent line compared to ball-points, particularly on the pack of index cards that I carry in my pocket for notes and to-do lists.

[Kohanbash]

When I have a choice I use a mechanical pencil so that I can erase things.

Unfortunately in engineering pads I have to use a pen to make the legal folks happy.

[nctnico]

Just any ball-point pen for me. If a pen doesn't write or feel right it goes straight into the bin.

[steve30]

I either use my LAMY fountain pen, with an extra fine nib, or some kind of fiber tipped drawing pen. Typically I use Uni-Pin type.

I do stuff in either black, blue, red or green. I like using colours

[Fsck]

I use a Pentel GraphGear 1000 mechanical pencil (0.5mm)

my favorite too, have like 10 of those scattered around my apartment.

[BravoV]

Uzi 9mm

MAC-10 , its lighter and smoother when writing ... 

[NiHaoMike]

0.7mm mechanical pencil. I have found that the 0.5mm doesn't give any more meaningful resolution for schematic drawing but breaks easier. Then I digitize it into a PNG with a grayscale scan followed by some thresholding in GIMP. I'm still waiting for a sufficiently precise yet affordable direct to digital way of doing it...

[poorchava]

Ordinary Stabilo point 88.

[nanofrog]

0.05mm mechanical pencil (Staedtler) for something that can be erased, 0.05" Pigma Micron for ink, and a Parker Jotter for general writing.

[Whuffo]

I find that the quality of the paper surface has a lot to do with writing satisfaction. If drawing lines and circles with ruler and templates, I'll use a 0.5mm mechanical pencil. If I'm writing labels or text, then the weapon of choice is a Parker ball point. If I'm feeling fancy, I'll break out my Parker Ciselle pen - otherwise, the basic T-ball Jotter does the trick. They write smoothly without blobs and smears - Bic pens and their ilk are little better than garbage. Use a truly good pen once and you'll never go back to that crap.

[Fsck]

I've found that I really like writing with montblanc fineliners as well
they're like fine smooth sharpies

[madshaman]

- Common Staedtler Mars 2H and 4H pencils and white eraser

- set of red, green, blue, black ballpoint pens, like others, if they write well, don't care what make

[geo_leeman]

Nice, dark, erasable Blackwing Palomino 602 Pencils... expensive, but very worth it.

Pens include a Lamy Fountain Pen and the Schneider Slider Memo (German), both very smooth writers.

[tized]

I have a ball-point pen which is also a 0.5mm mechanical pencil. I use the mechanical pencil for most schematic drafts and calculations. The pen is to write down the things I want to remember.

[John Coloccia]

Well...I use Diptrace for schematic capture and layout, but for the initial playing around I use the same pen I use for everything:  A UniBall, medium or fine tip, depending on my mood.  Best cheap pen on the planet, IMHO.

I don't use pencil for work like this....nor for calculations or any theoretical work either.  I don't like not leaving a trail behind.  Just because I erase and rewrite doesn't mean I didn't have it right the first time, plus it's too easy to forget why you choose to go a certain path.

[lovro]

I write with fountain pens, I have an Lamy Safari with extra fine tip on me all the time.

[GreyWoolfe]

For anything ink related, I write with a Pilot Precise V5 RT microfine black.  My company lets me buy them by the box because I lose them .  My pencil of choice for drawing schematics is a Stadtler Mars 780 technical mechanical pencil with graphic symbol templates by Template Designs and RapiDesign.  Picked it up back in my ITT days and still use it.  Also use it for marking wood to cut.

Tom, NW0LF

[Stonent]

I had a Dell pen that a rep had given me many years ago. Best pen I had ever written with. It had a nice weight and it flowed very well. One day it just up and disappeared. I think someone swiped it from my desk.

That being said it seems that I find writing difficult in general.  Computers have taken away my ability to write things.

[madshaman]

I had a Dell pen that a rep had given me many years ago. Best pen I had ever written with. It had a nice weight and it flowed very well. One day it just up and disappeared. I think someone swiped it from my desk.

That being said it seems that I find writing difficult in general.  Computers have taken away my ability to write things.

:shocked:

Goes to show how vastly different people's preferences can be.  I can't design *anything* of significant complexity without pen and paper, hardware *or* software.  The computer is usually the *last* thing I touch in the process (and my whole career in my previous life was as an SE).

Would love to hear about your workflow on the computer; it might inspire me to use it more or see ways I could make better use of it.

[Stonent]

I had a Dell pen that a rep had given me many years ago. Best pen I had ever written with. It had a nice weight and it flowed very well. One day it just up and disappeared. I think someone swiped it from my desk.

That being said it seems that I find writing difficult in general.  Computers have taken away my ability to write things.

:shocked:

Goes to show how vastly different people's preferences can be.  I can't design *anything* of significant complexity without pen and paper, hardware *or* software.  The computer is usually the *last* thing I touch in the process (and my whole career in my previous life was as an SE).

Would love to hear about your workflow on the computer; it might inspire me to use it more or see ways I could make better use of it.

Hmm workflow. Well it depends on what I'm doing...

I'll first off say, I'm not a programmer, or at least I don't develop software. But I do tend to write a lot of batch files and scripts.

Most of what I do revolves around the question "What manual steps do I do repeatedly that I could automate?" So a lot of batch files, hacked together VB scripts etc. I tend to like to run reports and extract data from them. If I can do a batch file or script to scrape out what I need from raw data, even better. Another part of what I do tends to revolve around "What can I do without having to speak to people on the phone?" People are resource hogs, if someone has you on the phone you can't put them on hold for 3 hours but if you're dealing in e-mail, you can. So that brings me to the part of inserting background tasks into people's computers to fix things, then sending them an e-mail that their computer is fixed and they marvel how it all got fixed without me even letting them know I'm working on their PC.

Another part of it is since I work in an active manufacturing facility that produces products that each sell for $100,000 or more, I can't take computers down willy-nilly to repair them so I have to queue things up so to speak. I tend to to use the "AT" command a lot. AT 2:00AM "c:\temp\installpatches.bat" && at 3:00AM shutdown -r -t 1 -f && at 3:15AM "c:\temp\checkforupdates.bat" && at 3:30AM "c:\temp\installpatches.bat" && at 4:00AM shutdown -r -t 1 -f && at 4:15AM defrag c: -f

Stuff like that.

[dr.diesel]

I can't be the only one that still develops in vi?

[IntegratedValve]

I would love to play with software schematic design tools, but unfortunately none is considered user friendly. And I'm not talking here about advanced features, so please don't say that some are advanced/professional, because I'm talking about usability in terms of schematic drawing features. All are lacking and even a simple paint program can do much better.

[PaulAm]

These days I mostly use Tul 0.5mm fine point gel retractables.  Before that I used Pilot P-500 0.5mm.  My scribbles are so bad I need a fine line to be able to figure out what I jotted down.  The Tuls have a nice dark line that flows well (until you drop them on their tip)

[John Coloccia]

I would love to play with software schematic design tools, but unfortunately none is considered user friendly. And I'm not talking here about advanced features, so please don't say that some are advanced/professional, because I'm talking about usability in terms of schematic drawing features. All are lacking and even a simple paint program can do much better.

Diptrace is about as simple as it gets but it's powerful enough to do anything you need it to do for anything but more advanced operations.  I use it in my own business.

[deth502]

ill use whatever is handy.

what i prefer is a fountain pen. i just like the tactile feedback of the nib scraping across the paper. you dont get that with a ballpoint. second choice would be a fine felt tip pen, for the same reason. if its a pencil, it has to be mechanical. no time for repeated sharpening.

[Stonent]

I can't be the only one that still develops in vi?

Vi is by far superior to that atrocity known as Emacs. 

[madshaman]

I can't be the only one that still develops in vi?

Vi is by far superior to that atrocity known as Emacs. 

emacs vs vi, round 17 billion, FIGHT!

I use vi if it's the terminal, otherwise scite or nedit :p

[Stonent]

I can't be the only one that still develops in vi?

Vi is by far superior to that atrocity known as Emacs. 

emacs vs vi, round 17 billion, FIGHT!

I use vi if it's the terminal, otherwise scite or nedit :p

However Nano is better than via or emacs!

[JackOfVA]

Pentel P205 - with HB 0.5mm lead.

[echen1024]

Kurutoga, Graphgear 1000, or, for a pen, Pilot Precise V5