Heat sink compound

[Roger Heflin]

On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Frederic Breitwieser 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!
> 
> Most heat sink compounds are diaelectrics, which is an
> electronic insulator, but a thermally conductive substance. 
> Most components mounted on a heat sink either use the heat
> sink as a thermal dissapation device, or, if the heat sink
> is part of the circuit (in the case of much larger
> electronic devices sometimes), the part is bolted to the
> heat sink to ensure a reliable electronic connection as well
> as thermal conductivity.
> 

My only worry would be that are heat sink compount always going to
provide insulation?  Or are some conductive enough to cause problems?
At least the dielectrics are supposed to be insulators.  I always
assumed that heat sink compound was supposed to conduct heat, and
anything else it happened to do besides that really depended on what
was in the heat sink compound.  It would make me believe it may even
depend on the brand how it performed as a insulator.

			Roger