19 Mar
2005
19 Mar
'05
2:45 p.m.
>>>> "William" == William
Donzelli <aw288 at osfn.org> writes:
> Often, older oil-filled capacitors will have the
'nasty' oil in
> them containing carcingenic PCBs, which is part of what makes
> oil-filled caps hard to find. I've often pondered on that fact
> with the big caps one sees at surplus stores. I.e.: which are the
> ones that transform your home into a mini-superfund site if you
> cut them open?
William> The oil found in some* caps is carcinogenic, but it is
William> really not all that bad if you spill a little on
William> yourself. You really need to be exposed to the stuff for a
William> very long time for the cancer spectre to come up. About the
William> worst you could do to yourself with a little spill is a good
William> slip on the floor and a sore behind.
William> The real danger of oil caps is when they burn - the
William> resulting fumes are NOT nice (dioxin compounds, I
William> think). Just the little oil in a few motor start
William> (errrr...run) caps won't really cause too many problems. If
William> the caps are burning, which they do not do well, probably
William> plenty of other things are buring with them, at which point
William> you have a serious fire and plenty of other fumes to worry
William> about.
If I remember right, dioxins are substances known to be extremely
dangerous to guinea pigs, slightly toxic to rats, and maybe not at all
to most other mammals...
The most important property of PCBs and dioxins is that they provide
infinite employment to lawyers of all kinds.
William> * A large percentage are not PCB filled. Just because a cap
William> doesn't say "NO PCBS", does in mean it has them. Many
William> non-PCB caps were made before the "NO PCBS" label came into
William> force.
That makes sense. I thougth PCBs were used because of nice thermal
properties -- which is great for power transformers, but not so
obviously important for capacitors.
paul