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November 19, 2011

How to rejuvenate rechargeable NiCd batteries

NiCd battery pack, assembled

NiCd battery pack


This post is about a method to restore (rejuvenate) NiCd (NiCad) battery packs that are failing to charge. I have 2 sets of cordless tools (drill, circular saw, reciprocating saw and more) that use rechargeable NiCd battery packs. Three of the battery packs were failing to charge. Having had some previous success with rejuvenating apparently expired NiCd cells, I decided to do some tinkering, and I was able to restore the packs such that they will now charge to a usable level. I’ve previously used the same procedure, at lower current, to rejuvenate NiCd cells for cordless phones.
These tool sets and battery packs are very common. Mine were MasterCraft brand purchased from Canadian Tire, but there are many similar ones on the market with other branding. I’d guess millions of similar cordless sets have been sold, so maybe someone else can benefit from this post and save a few $ on new batteries. Perhaps more significantly, maybe this will save some battery packs and even the tools themselves from adding to our garbage output; the Cd in the cells is very toxic, so the less of it we put into use and the less that goes into the waste stream, the better. (more…)

October 28, 2010

Dog Friends – My First Book (and Calendar)

Dog Friends cover.

Dog Friends


For a while now, I’ve been working on my first book, Dog Friends.  After many, many years of photographing great dogs, and great dog people, I’ve finally done a book about it. The book authoring and layout are complete now and the book should be available in early November.  There is also a companion Dog Friends Calendar.  Details are here on my Books page.

Update Nov. 19: I’m very happy to announce that Dog Friends is now available for sale online. I’ve received the first printed copies myself and am very pleased with the print quality by the publisher, Lulu.com. The Amazon Kindle eBook version is also now available. You can see excerpts and place book and calendar orders from my books page.
I have some useful experience now  in publishing books through Lulu and also for Amazon Kindle. I might do a post later on my war stories about the hurdles I ran into and the details to be aware of – nothing serious, and I think both publishers are very good overall.  In the mean time, if you have any questions for me about any of that, feel free to post here about it, or e-mail me at dogfriends[at]davebaar.com

September 19, 2010

My Subaru Outback Head Gasket Repair

Don't try this at home.

This could be your Subaru (parts).

I have a 1997 Subaru Outback with about 280,000km on it. It began showing the head gasket failure symptoms so typical of the Subaru boxer 2.5L engine of this series of cars: foaming/bubbling in the coolant (the reservoir actually looked like a boiling kettle when the engine was running), brief random apparent spikes of the temperature gauge, and coolant loss. Much has been written elsewhere about this issue, and there are a few references about the problem and some repair examples at the end of this blog. Known model years affected by this problem are at least 1996-2002, so be aware of it if you are looking at a used Subaru of that age. I decided to do the repair myself, being very inclined to tinkering, foolish enough to attempt it, and also being unwilling to spend about $2500+ for a shop mechanic to do the job.
Edit Oct. 2011: A few people have asked me about the “head gasket sealer in a can” products. There are a few on the market. I actually had tried one of these, Bar’s Leaks, before I did the real repair, with no success. What I’ve seen in other reports is that they simply don’t work on “internal” head gasket leaks such as what this series of Outbacks gets. Furthermore, given how severe the gasket damage tends to be, I don’t have much confidence in them. The gasket replacement job looks to be the only option, if you want to keep the engine. The good news, though, is that you don’t need to remove the engine from the car to do this repair.
Here are some details of the head gasket repair that I did, in case it helps anyone else trying to do the same thing. Note that this is a big job, (more…)

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