Since the company Redflow recently dissolved after 14 years, owners really need a forum of ZCell owners to facilitate repairs, news regarding the purchase of Redflow IP and potential development of new zinc-bromine flow battery manufacturers, and so on.
Maybe there already is one - I shut down my Facebook account some years ago, and maybe there is such a group there. Is there?
Or are there any others?
Cheers
Using the perplexity AI engine, I found this Facebook group: “Redflow Battery Users Group” (500415625244938).
Hm. It’s not enough to push me to sign up to Facebook again.
It also suggested https://secondlifestorage.com/, so I’ll give that a try,
I’m in that Facebook group, it won’t give you any help.
You can keep up to date with the liquidation here:
https://aurestructuring.deloitte-halo.com/service/website/Redflow?Pg=4
If you’ve got ZBM3’s, I wouldn’t be hopeful they will last. My system ran 3, and I had 6 fail within 12 months (first batch, and then those replaced under warranty)
Thanks. I followed the whole process of the Redflow collapse.
I have two ZBM2.5s and one ZBM3. The ZBM3 is the only one that’s currently working, and it is working perfectly so far.
Do you have any ideas how to log in to the ZCell BMS? I used to log in using the default username and password, but the password had been changed (I suppose by Redflow technical support) when my ZBM3 was installed (to replace a failed ZBM2.5 under warranty) in June 2024. The thing is, the Service Manager told me he didn’t know what it was/is.
If you know the address to access but not the password I’m not sure how you can access it.
The Redflow BMS is a Raspberry Pi computer with some custom hardware to allow communication with the battery modules. If you’re good with Linux, you can pull out the SD card and reset the root password by editing the appropriate file directly. Once you’re in, you should be able to find the web server and figure out how to reset that password.
Unfortunately, I sold my BMS to a Redflow installer who used it for another customer, so I can’t provide more information than that. If you aren’t comfortable with Linux, I’d recommend you leave it be, or finding a friend to help you.
Good luck.
Thanks.
I’m OK with Linux (currently on Tails OS). Not so good with my crossed eyes and nerve=damaged hands, trying to find and fish out an SD card. I’ll give it a go, though. 
Thanks
I’ve had another look at the BMS, and here’s my next question(s):
Do you know where the SD card is located?
Do I need to pull this module out of the enclosure?
The SD card will be inserted into a socket on the main board. It might be accessible from the outside, but that depends on the case; it’s possible that you’ll need to pull the BMS out, disconnect cables, and crack the case open.
If you do a search for the Raspberry Pi board, there’ll be photos aplenty; I don’t know which specific revision Redflow used, so I can’t give you much guidance beyond the very general. I also don’t know the details of how it connects to the battery modules; I think it’s a standard serial cable, but I never looked at it that closely, so there’s a risk of damage when you disconnect the cables and/or extract it from the panel.
I’m quite late to the party on this thread, and the following isn’t actually a forum, but in case it’s helpful I’ve been documenting my experience with a number of ZCells over the past four years on my blog. You can find the whole series at redflow | Ourobengr
The last two posts in the series - “Yeah… That went well” and “What Happened Next” will probably be of most use to anyone still trying to keep these things running. Notably the final post includes a PDF of the BMS reference guide which among other things has instructions on resetting the BMS password using either a USB keyboard or USB disk (see the final two pages of the PDF).
oh boy. I look forward to reading this when I get a chance. 
“The thing is, I remain convinced that flow batteries are in general a better idea for long-term stationary energy storage than lithium. This article from the Guardian provides a quick high-level summary of what makes flow batteries different. What I really want to be able to do – given Redflow is gone – is migrate to another flow battery, ideally one that actually lives up to the promise of multi-decade longevity. Maybe someone will finally come up with a residential scale vanadium flow battery. Maybe someone will buy Redflow’s IP, carry on their work and fix some of their reliability issues (the latest update from the liquidators at the time of writing says that they have “entered an exclusive negotiation period with a party for the acquisition of Redflow Group’s intellectual property (IP) and certain specific assets”). Maybe we’ll even see a viable open source flow battery – I would love for this to happen, not least because if it failed I’d probably be able to figure out how to fix the damn thing myself!“
Yes, yes, and yes.
I was planning on having a total of seven ZCells, so that I had 60kWh on hand at the end of each day to feed my 1φ household limit of 5kW to the grid for 12 hours of darkness every night (which is pretty consistent in the tropics where I live). The zinc-bromide flow battery chemistry is still the best in the world for this application, but sadly it is not currently available.
Now I have to rethink my ESS. I’m currently looking at https://www.relectrify.com/, which is inferior Li-ion battery chemistry, but built from “depleted” EV cells, so means less toxic waste being buried in the ground when compared to virgin cells. The basic 120kWh module suits me fine, storing enough energy to feed the maximum permissible to the grid constantly, as well as some energy up my sleeve for my own use.
PS I’ll be using the PDF of the BMS reference guide from your post to (attempt to) reset my BMS to factory default settings. Thank you.
Interesting! Thanks for the link.
Cool, glad I was able to (hopefully) help 
I just had a little look. Sadly, I think I can see a USB port on the left-hand side of the BMS module, but it is not accessible without removing the BMS module from the enclosure (or removing the BMS power supply which is item 6 shown in the photo above https://community.victronenergy.com/t/do-any-of-you-own-and-or-use-redflow-zcell-batteries/16937/8?u=el_gallo_azul).
I just checked mine and the USB ports are on the bottom.
Are you able to unscrew the front of the whole enclosure and slide that off somehow in order to access everything better?
I went to see if there are any updates I haven’t seen, but:
”Tor Browser blocked your visit to this site because the certificate provided for aurestructuring.deloitte-halo.com has been revoked and isn’t trusted anymore.
Error code: SEC_ERROR_REVOKED_CERTIFICATE”
Anyone know how to safely dispose of Zcells? I have two I need to get rid of.
AIUI the main problem is getting rid of the toxic, corrosive electrolyte. I understand this requires a specialist chemical waste handling contractor.
(Sorry to not be more help immediately - I too will need to perform ZCell disposal in the future, but I haven’t actually done it yet)
