Hello all,I am the original poster and I wanted to share my thoughts. I have spent several hours researching this subject and here is my thoughts. As everyone knows the purpose for it mainly is to help transfer heat from the electronic component to the heat sink. Another reason is to prevent corrosion between the two metal surfaces. According to the test the one post refers to where he tested the thermal transfer ability between silicone dielectric grease and heat sink paste,the paste was better at transferring heat but only marginally better than the silicone dielectric grease.Now I know this was only one test and in the real world anything is possible,A few characteristics of the silicone dielectric is won't burn,won't melt,won't run,temp range up to 500 degrees f,non hardening,safe for plastics and rubber(if it came in contact)
Does anyone have any accounts of it not working for mounting components to heatsinks???
Wouldn't it be alot cheaper to buy and use???,,if it indeed posed no issues??
I haven't repaired that many items yet and like I said I'm learning and appreciate all the insight and information I get especially from this site.I have a question about a stereo I just repaired!
Marantz 2226b stereo that I was given and running it with the cover off I noticed alot of heat coming from the p800 board, specifically it was coming from the big 5 watt ceramic resistor (r776), touching it and it would burn you,,inspected and noticed the solder to the leads was melting,,so first thing I did was resolder the leads,,it didn't help,,a quick voltage test and I learned it was dissipating 12 watts,35.5 volt drop thru a 100 ohm resistor,,I tried to set the power supply adjustment to 35 volts and it would not adjust any higher than 29 volts with vr turned all the way,,much learning and reading later from info on this sight I figured I would replace the 2sd330 transistor,,long story short I measured the resistance to ground on the 5 watt ceramic resistor (r776),it showed 150 ohms on the side that goes to the transistor c terminal..the new transistor showed that the collector internally shorts to it's heatsink,,so just for the heck of it I unmounted the transistor from touching the heat sink but left it soldered to board.rechecked resistance to ground and the short was gone,,so I found a gray rubber looking really thick pad I saved from somewhere,removed the old thin mics pad,,cleaned up the old white grease,I then mounted it back to the heatsink with some silicone dielectric grease and reinstalled the metal clamp bar that's present on a 2226b and checked resistance to ground and it now showed 3.2m ohms,,so I fired it up and tested it,,no heat at all on resistor,,adjusted p/s from 35.8 volts to 35. It's been playing now for 8 hours with no issues and nothing replaced but an insulator pad
My question is what caused the 150 ohm short to ground?, Was it the old mica pad or was it that the old white grease had melted off over the past 40 years and left whatever particles it holds in suspension to cause a short???