I also just got birchwood endplates for the first test of the large scale design. These are 1.8cm thick, so stiff enough to be able to seal the cell in theory. Since there is no chemical contact with the endplate, we shouldn't have any problem using this material. I will get brass current collectors next week - Xometry just shipped them to me - and will then proceed with the first test. [image: 1752155747359-whatsapp-image-2025-07-10-at-1.25.59-pm.jpeg]

It is incredibly exciting to see you guys reproducing the kit! We are really excited about completely independent third parties being able to just build and run this thing.

I ordered most parts now. Fingers crossed they are correct. I went for the Ti foil instead of the graphoil since it was way cheaper. Fingers crossed

@quinnale this look great!! @quinnale said in Towards a working system: In addition, by printing the gasket template for a guide, and then cutting the holes and cavity with some cheap circular punches and an x-acto knife, I got some jenky gaskets. I've done similar, it's definitely possible as you've shown! @quinnale said in Towards a working system: Also, should I have made this a blog post? Happy to delete and move if that's better. Oh no worries there, I made that category in part as a container for Daniel's blog - WordPress and our forum software can interact (via ActivityPub), so that we can reference and comment on his (and other people's) longform WordPress posts directly here in the forum, like what's happening here. @quinnale said in Towards a working system: Also, here's an update on the 3D-printed pump! Been running it for about an hour, no issues. Unlisted Youtube video . If anyone is curious I can provide more details. Gonna try run it to death, see if the plastic or the tubing fails first. That's awesome! Having another pump option besides only Kamoer would be great (esp. an open-source one!). It's this pump you've used? @sepi said in Towards a working system: eing a complete newb, I slowly gather an understanding of the individual components of the cell. Glad to hear it, that's one of the whole points of this forum!

Ah, in the FAQ ... Yes, was thinking wrong from other and not so good sources.

@sepi Unless you are very experienced soldering small components I would suggest not doing this. Some of the expensive components are tiny and easy to damage, either by overheating or by soldering multiple legs together and causing shorts. I tried soldering my own mystat 3 times (without success) before I got my first working one from pcbway. I am however, not good at all at soldering.

My latest quote is 315$ with assembly included by PCBWay. That's expensive but not prohibitive. Thanks for the input!

Here is an updated version! https://spectra.video/w/nJ8XNYu1MXNPSDLKV3KVTh

@gus @SamAuc ABS may work with an all-copper chemistry!

Cloning the https://codeberg.org/FBRC/RFB-dev-kit repository, opening the assembly in FreeCAD, fixing part of it, then pushing the changes with VSCodium. As part of the Flow Battery Research Collective project at https://fbrc.dev 0:00 Cloning repository 3:29 Opening assembly file 4:09 Fixing the cell assembly 20:20 Pushing changes to repository

Hi Otmar, welcome to FBRC and the project, looking forward to working with you!

@kirk said in How should we control the centrifugal pumps? TRIAC/thyristor etc? Need help from controls/electrical people: It seems to work! At least enough for testing purposes. Here is a video: https://spectra.video/w/8xipM8aXnBkDXnu4kkRpqT Here is the code for this test: https://codeberg.org/FBRC/RFB-test-cell/src/commit/d10834bc7dd67736e708c9a33832a5602ab3ca28/firmware/FlowrateRampTest.ino

That's great! Do you have a link to one or know where we could procure one to test?

Stephen Hawes of Opulo has compiled some of their tools here: https://midscale.io/docs The AutoBOM one seems to be based on those workflows above and looks pretty interesting

Reading the posts about the different pump designs, it makes more sense. More background reading to do. TY

@H4K1 no need to build the flow battery and test chemistry to help the project out! You can also build and test just with water, especially the larger cell we'll build. But if you can do CI/CD and firmware now then that's great! You'd be the only one on the project now with those capabilities, so a huge bonus. It will help make a framework that we'll benefit from as the project advances and hopefully save us some time as we improve and develop, so we can focus on what we're all best at and enjoy!