I also admire what you guys are doing there at OSE-US and it always strengthens our motivation and enthusiasm to see what has been already achieved there at the Factor E Farm.

I hope we can make such a good progress with the FBRC projects too and i'm glad to collaborate with you on that.

Energy storage is to important to leave it alone in the hands of the monopolists and therefore i appreciate any OSH approach to research a kind of storage technology, no matter which one because all have their individual properties, advantages and use cases and it would be nice to cover more of them by open source hardware projects.

Therefore it makes a lot of sense to strengthen and extend our networks and secondly, the above mentioned different kinds of technology are not only useful in terms of pure technology, but instead aspects like replicateability can also have a strong value in our context, because if an experimental platform is easily accessible you can gain more people working with it and that means more menpower in running experimental test series. Which can lead at the end of the day to some groundbreaking innovations (fingers crossed).

I am new here and still trying to find my way into the workflow but so far i got nice support from Daniel and Kirk, so i am confident and looking forward for what comes next.

Here is a link to our project page at the OSEG wiki at https://wiki.opensourceecology.de/Zn/O-Brennstoffzelle (with recent activities in an approach of citizen-science workshops, eg. at https://wiki.opensourceecology.de/ZACplus_Citizen-Science_workshop_vom_21.03.2025_und_22.03.2025) and some other impressions can be seen at our YT-channel https://www.youtube.com/@ZACplusCitizen-SciencePr-un9nv/videos .

Best regards, Oliver

Hi, I am vesko. Not very intuitive how to introduce myself, but I hope that by touching Al over the previous screen, this is the place. Anyway.
I am a retired electronic HW/SW engineer. Have all the time for my own projects. Independent living is my highest priority and I am ready and willing to put my time, money and efforts to achieve that goal and possibly help others along the way.
I bought a house in the boonies, I had a water well drilled. I am designing and implementing my oven silt filtration system that doesn’t need to buy and replace filters, chemicals etc. only if something breaks I need to repair/replace it. I installed solar system. Prefer water turbines, but it’s a much more complicated project, so solar is an imperfect but fast solution. Not very happy with the price of lithium batteries “lease” they call it purchase. It’s not a purchase / it’s a 10-15 years lease. So, looking forward to be battery independent

@rowow said in New member introduction thread!:

Secondly, using foam core PVC sheets which are readily available and cheap from cabinet shops like imeca allows for complex flow cell designs to be easily and rapidly produced with a simple CNC router on various sizes. I have a flow cell design already I'll be glad to upload.

This would be great to see! Feel free to start a thread in @general-discussion about your cell design. We had tossed around the idea of 2D-material milling/laser approaches to flow frames, but have stuck with 3D printed designs for now so that we can have internal geometries in the flow frames - 2D would certainly be easier and cheaper to make, but I was hesitant about the increased gasketing required/adhesives for sealing.

There's a lot I would love to add to this community. I think the way traditional methodology for this technology needs to be reapproached. Firstly, by using my open sourced membrane recipe you can glue it directly into a PVC cell. Secondly, using foam core PVC sheets which are readily available and cheap from cabinet shops like imeca allows for complex flow cell designs to be easily and rapidly produced with a simple CNC router on various sizes. I have a flow cell design already I'll be glad to upload. I'm new here so sorry there's a lot I love to want to share and am doing things one thing at a time.

I found FBRC via a friend who found you in OSHWA’s hardware listing. I followed the breadcrumbs to your forum.

I am interested in the low cost, low toxicity, and long cycle durability of flow batteries, especially since the batteries being developed here are open source! I want to see this tech spread far and wide.

Additionally, I am interested in finding out about how this project could use a novel method of low-cost/DIY ion exchange membrane production that was developed by Rowow on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c3tNXDlgE2M

I see myself getting involved by taking working cell designs and electrolyte chemistries to build flow batteries for use in home scale energy storage. I wish to fully utilize photovoltaic power to cover my at home energy needs.

Thanks for reading! -Alexa

Kind Regards.

I am reaching out to you today as a team member of the CIRCLE project at Bochum University of Applied Sciences.
CIRCLE stands for Creative Impulses for Recycling, Crafting and Learning and is a teaching and research project that aims to combine the concepts of makerspaces and circular economy. In this context, researchers and students work together with various partners to investigate the circularity of products using scientific methods (e.g., life cycle assessment) and to practically develop, test, and validate potential product improvements. To support this work, we have both the necessary technical and scientific infrastructure as well as a fully equipped makerspace on campus.

The CIRCLE project is conducted by the Sustainable Technologies Laboratory at Bochum University. Our lab is dedicated not only to topics of circularity but also energy systems. Among other things, we have previously conducted life cycle assessments (LCA) of redox flow batteries.
https://www.hochschule-bochum.de/en/labor-nachhaltigkeit-technik/circle/

We are currently in the project’s kick-off phase and are looking for interested partners who might be open to collaborating with us. According to your roadmap, you plan to begin storing energy on a practical scale later this year.

We believe this could be a great opportunity to collaborate by assessing the environmental impact of your open-source flow battery kit/scaled models, identifying hotspots across different life cycle phases, and jointly developing potential solutions. Exploring the environmental benefits of open-source hardware could also be an interesting dimension of such a partnership.

If this sounds interesting to you, we would be happy to arrange a meeting to discuss initial questions, ideas, and potential areas for collaboration.
We look forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,
Santiago Eduardo

I'am doho, in retirement since last year.

Hi doho, a belated welcome to the project and congratulations on your retirement! I apologize for missing your earlier post.

@doho said in New member introduction thread!:

But i noticed many companies and projects to come up and crash long time before ready to market.

This is definitely the history of most attempts at flow battery commercialization.

@doho said in New member introduction thread!:

Meanwhile I'm building your test-cell, 3D-printing is done, pumps are in loco, arduino is programmed,but I'm waiting for some other components,
especially: do you have an alternativ suggest for the tubing (I have purchase a tube TYGON LMT-55, but I'm not shure it will work).

You've made a lot of progress already - I see you're in touch with sepi about the tubing, it is a rather annoying requirement. Hopefully once we have an alternative chemistry like iron, we can use easier-to-find tubing.

@doho said in New member introduction thread!:

I'm sure, for starting, when construction is more ore less finished, I will need some help of the comunity.

We will be here ready to help!

@doho said in New member introduction thread!:

I know my english is very poor, due to lack of experience in the last years, but I hope this should not be a problem.

Definitely not, there are quite a few of us with non-native English backgrounds, no worries there!

How can I get in contact with you? Paying in advance would be no problem.

Meanwhile I'm building your test-cell, 3D-printing is done, pumps are in loco, arduino is programmed,but I'm waiting for some other components,
especially: do you have an alternativ suggest for the tubing (I have purchase a tube TYGON LMT-55, but I'm not shure it will work).

Welcome to the club! I'm also building the cell and having issues getting that tube. I think I found a good source for it in germany but I'd need to buy 15m @ 18€/m. If you're interested, I could buy the 15m and sell you 1m or how much you need. I'm sure there are others who would want some.

I found FBRC in one of the last issues of c't (Heise-Verlag, heise.de) and was interested at once.

Meanwhile I'm building your test-cell, 3D-printing is done, pumps are in loco, arduino is programmed,but I'm waiting for some other components,
especially: do you have an alternativ suggest for the tubing (I have purchase a tube TYGON LMT-55, but I'm not shure it will work).

I'm sure, for starting, when construction is more ore less finished, I will need some help of the comunity.

Perhaps my faulty trials will bring a little progression, I will report.

I know my english is very poor, due to lack of experience in the last years, but I hope this should not be a problem.

Sincerely
Dr. Georg Hoffmann

We are also doing the development of the large scale system, but this is still in early phases. We have just done the initial large scale single cells and have yet to do any stacks or actual charge/discharge at this scale. It will take a while but hopefully we will have a full scale open source system in the kwh scale within a year.

Enjoy the trip.

Greetings
Andre

I've had three+ years experience at my home with Redflow ZCells hooked up to Victron inverter/charger gear,

Hi Tim, highly welcome. This is exactly what I plan to do with my Victron setup