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Re: oil-filled capacitors



At 08:36 AM 2/26/97 -0800, you wrote:
Incidentally, these are oil-filled capacitors, not electrolytic.

Actually they are Pyranol-filled capacitors. Do you know what Pyranol
is? It is that environmentalists' whipping boy, ploychlorinated
biphenyls, or "PCBs" as they are called for the press releases to
terrify Joe Sixpack.

But ... PCBs are listed carcinogens, and (at least in the US) must be
handled as toxic wastes. To ignore that edict is to invite fines and/or
major liability claims.


I have spent considerable time in Pyranol up to my elbows in my youth
while unpotting transmission line transformers (we called them "pole
pegs" (or pole pigs)) to make big radio transmitter power supplies.


As a former denizen of upstate New York, I remember well the deformed
PCB-contaminated fish in the Hudson River, and the subsequent ban on eating
_anything_ caught there. Ironically, nobody noticed the PCBs until they
cleaned up the sewage problem and allowed the fish to come back! Since they
tend to concentrate in fatty tissue, I suspect that the real hazard comes
from ingestion, which I presume you didn't do! On the other hand, I recall
playing with mercury when younger and more naive - something I wouldn't do
today, either.

George Spagna **********************************************
Department of Physics * *
Randolph-Macon College * And so some day, *
P.O. Box 5005 * The mighty ramparts of the mighty universe *
Ashland, VA 23005-5505 * Ringed round with hostile force *
* Will yield and face decay *
phone: (804) 752-7344 * and come crumbling to ruin. *
FAX: (804) 752-4724 * - Lucretius, De Rerum Natura *
e-mail: gspagna@rmc.edu **********************************************
URL: www.rmc.edu/~gspagna/gspagna.html