grease me up!

[mah62]

bought some liquid, no clean flux on ebay and it came with pre injection swabs and
thermal grease. I thought my parcel from ann summers had arrived early! Eh? Eh? fnar! fnar!

The question is......er, what are these disgusting items and how are they used?

Mark

[nieradka]

Thermal grease is used between an IC and its heatsink for better thermal contact. Its not used in any pedal building context I know of. Often used on computers and such, though im sure it could be useful if building a power supply or something. Pre injection swabs are just alcohol soaked pads. For cleaning I suppose?

[copachino]

thermal paste, its use to conduct heat through the heatsink, since the heatsink its metal(aluminium or copper) and most of the heat elements in the IC has the same metals for a better heat transfer, you must use some non electrical conduct paste between them, to ensure heat transfer and avoid the chips to get short

[mah62]

thanks, fellas. This place is so much more user friendly than google!

Mark