Resistance to knowledge drain from moving researchers is integral to ensuring longevity. A common flaw of purpose built laboratory equipment is that the knowledge to operate, maintain, and assemble the devices resides with the researchers that develop them. In academic settings, this issue is compounded by the movement of researchers to other institutions. We found that in a large project like this, knowledge is decentralized across multiple individuals. While decentralization is a major asset of open hardware , we found that it can provide a share of difficulty. The process of tracking down knowledgeable parties further complicates adoption by other sites. The knowledge drain and decentralization can be combated by a robust repository for all supporting files and documentationeven the beta phase documents. Storage in shared drives can be a liability; shared drive transferring issues and managing permission adds unnecessary complications with transferring between researchers and with dissemination. Even if a project begins organically with files stored internally, it is worth investing time in a robust, easily accessible file storage system like GitHub . Community repositories not only allow the easy sharing of hardware assets and operational knowledge, but also motivate the push and pull site champions by providing a formal route for referring to their work, and leverage the combined knowledge of multiple adopters. Multi-modal information transfer, including videos and photos, helped improve efficiency and accuracy of communication. Of course, having a lab manager or research staff involved further supports knowledge permanence.