Heat sink compound vs. dialectic

[Roger Heflin]

On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Clarence Wood wrote:

>   A salesperson at AutoZone tried to sell me some heat sink 
>   compound stating that it was a dialectic.  Of course I challenged
>  the statement and he told me that he had used heat sink compound to
>  insure good connections.
>   Is heat sink compound a dialectic?  Curious minds want to know!

A diaelectric is an insulator.  It does not maintain a good
connection, that is the whole idea.  Using heat sink compound to
insure a good connection would be really bad.  Most heat sinks the
case is ground and you want it to have a good connection with ground,
dielectric is supposed to not maintain a good connection.  Of course
if most of the people he was selling it to are using it in the spark
plug boots I really don't see it making that much of a difference.  In
the books I have the insulating material in a capacitor is called a
dielectric so that would lead me to believe that dielectric grease was
non-conduction.

			Roger