Maker Pro
Maker Pro

heat sink compound

HLOW

Jan 24, 2013
12
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
12
Does anyone know of a good substitute for heat sink compound? And is it really necessary?
Thanks!
 

KrisBlueNZ

Sadly passed away in 2015
Nov 28, 2011
8,393
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
8,393
I think Steve recommends chocolate... :p
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
Moderator
Jan 21, 2010
25,510
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
Messages
25,510
I can tell you that chocolate is NOT a good substitute.

See here.
 

CocaCola

Apr 7, 2012
3,635
Joined
Apr 7, 2012
Messages
3,635
Does anyone know of a good substitute for heat sink compound? And is it really necessary?

Necessary, no but it helps the efficiency of heat transfer and if you are borderline it could make or break your project...

As for wanting a substitute, why? You can get it easy enough that it's hardly worth the effort or time to find a substitute... And before you say you can't get it, have you actually tried at say a computer store or shop? It's standard build procedure now to use it on CPUs and even some other chips inside a computer like memory, so any shop that sells computer parts should sell little tubes of it... If not it's all over Ebay for cheap...
 

MikeL

Apr 9, 2013
6
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
6
Silicon heats compound substitute

I think some kind of compound is neccesary, but there are 2 substitutes for silicon heat sink compound.
There is a non silicon compound available from mg chemicals and others. Advantages are no migration or component contamination.

There is also a silicon rubber I have seen. It is a thin rubber grey sheet used in place of mica with silicon. Electrical insulator but high heat transfer. I have not been able to buy them but have seen them used a lot

That said I prefer silicon because it is lower cost and I believe works better, as well as silicon is easy to see where it is, and also to see if it has dried out
 

quantumtangles

Dec 19, 2012
153
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Messages
153
I think Steve recommends chocolate... :p

I tried chocolate as a heatsink compound (for an L7805 voltage regulator connected to a 12v supply). The voltage regulator stopped working but I made some nice toffee.

If you check out the following video on youtube 'Rubidium Frequency Standard Teardown' you will see at 3:21 of the video that the (Stanford?) engineers used chocolate solder when making their frequency generator calibrator.


@ 3:21 minutes
 
Last edited:

john dougherty

Feb 11, 2013
9
Joined
Feb 11, 2013
Messages
9
Does anyone know of a good substitute for heat sink compound? And is it really necessary?
Thanks!
servisol 25 gram tubes can be bought from manzan electronics and will give you a quote . The compound is necessary as it dissipates the heat from out put transistors and IC s .By doing this it helps to keep the circuit COOL and prevents thermal runaway . Such cases would be power audio amplifier s like Marshall and fender .Also dj work . As for a substitute I do not know of any . If you would like to know a SPEC Manzan electronics will help
 
Last edited:
Top