What does an exploded capacitor look like?
Ahh ha. After tinkering about inside the sewing machine foot pedal speed controller, I finally tracked down the source of the dodgy speed regulation.
As it just so happens I found a fine replacement after a good rummage round in my salvaged bits box. All good, out with the old, in with the not quite new.
Incidentally, this is what the inside of a sewing machine foot pedal looks like. 
January 18th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
At least it hasn’t damaged the casing like the one that my engineering department just blew up when they confused 24v with 240v