[sdiy] caps with PCB's in them

[anthony]

A while ago I was messing with a Matsushita oil capacitor. I didn't realise 
that the solder blob at one end was not only soldering the lead to the cap, 
but also holding the oil in. So a lot of capacitor oil got in my desolering 
iron and big puffs of it went into my face. I think this thing was in some 
sort of tube audio equipment, but I can't remember for sure. I was just 
wondering if anyone knew if Matsushita ever used PCB's in their caps. I ask 
because I have a Matsushita motor-start oil cap that makes a point of saying 
that it is NON-PCB. So this begs the question: did they at one time USE 
PCB's and are making a point of clarifying for environmentally consious 
end-users or constrasting older caps that weren't so. I looked up the 
desccription of PCB's in my Merck Index, but it lists the isomers 
separately - there doesn't seem to be an entry for the mixture that would 
indubitably be used on the industrial scale in capcitors. It kind of 
reminded me of what air conditioning freon pumps smell like when you try to 
use them as vacuum pumps (it works, but they overheat because there's no 
good way to cool them) and that oil is some kind of heavy ester. I would 
expect PCB's to smell like mothballs. I have connections at teh University 
who could run a sample of the oil through a GC/mass-spec., but I thought I'd 
ask you guys for opinions.

It's hard for me to speparate new physical ailments from old ones since I've 
been suffering from chronic pancreatitis since 2003. But I've had a chronic 
sinus infection and had to have my spleen out subsequent to having this 
capacitor come open. My gut feeling is that they are unrelated. The chronic 
sinus infection is chronic because I had to have my spleen out. But still, 
from time to time, I wonder...

So what do youse guys(goils?) think?

Oh wait - I checked and the big 3.5uF/450VAC motor-start cap with "NON-PCB" 
is a GE cap. The Matsushita is a 0.55uF 2300VAC microwave-oven capacitor. It 
says, " No PCB's" on it.