[Milsurplus] Oil filled capacitors and PCBs in our equipment

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

Just how old *are* the caps you are looking at? Oil filled caps went into gear for many decades. Something from the 1920’s is a bit more suspect than something made in the 1960’s reliability wise. 

For a substantial amount of money you can still buy high voltage oil filled caps. They may be labeled for AC use. They are out there. Are they the “right” shape to drop straight in? Probably not. Can things be fudged a bit to fit them in? Maybe ….

Bob

> On Dec 1, 2023, at 12:05 PM, Reuben Popp <reuben.popp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> My apologies to everyone for spamming the list so much lately.  I'm trying to do my research before asking the list, but sometimes my google-fu isn't exactly fruitful.
> 
> Anyway...  Oil filled caps in our gear.  Was it standard to denote whether they contained PCBs in them, or is it a safe assumption that ANY oil filled cap with a manufacture date before 1980 is suspect?  As most of those are likely out of spec and leaky, is there ANY way to open the cap, dispose of the contents at an EPA approved site and then restuff the shell with new components?  Or is my only recourse to decouple the old cap from the circuit and then place newer ones under the chassis (or try to hide them, etc).  If my only option is the latter, once decoupled from the circuit, what's the likelihood that it will actually start leaking (as in, the oil).  One would think that would be fairly miniscule, but what with some of these going on 80+ years old, it's a crap shoot at this point, no?
> 
> Thanks again
> Reuben
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