Reuben
You are asking good questions, I don't think anyone here believes that they are spam.

A list of PCB trade names can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychlorinated_biphenyl

I'm not sure that all oil filled caps will eventually leak.  On the face of it, it seems reasonable but reliability is a fickle thing.  If an old part passes testing, then the chance of it continuing to be good (serviceable) is high, IMHO.  New components have yet to be stressed by normal operating conditions so they can fail early for no particular reason.  I would test it for leakage current and capacitor value.  If it passes both tests, then I would think that it is good to go.  

If you do enough leakage current testing then a high voltage current limited power supply is something to add to the tool kit.  Check eBay for an "electrophoresis power supply."  I have bought one (200 volt / 2 amps) for as little as $25, less postage.  The only thing wrong with it was a noisy fan which was easy to replace.  Some power supplies go as high as 1kv @ 500mA.  Bio-Rad is just one manufacturer.
Regards,
Jim

Logic: Method used to arrive at the wrong conclusion, with confidence.  Murphy


On Friday, December 1, 2023 at 11:07:42 AM CST, Reuben Popp <[email protected]> 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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