Thanks downlinx. Can you check your first link (Toms). I’m getting a 404 message.
Maybe with a little Dijon?
(hint-read the first review link)
That liquid pro ultra is kind of cool, liquid metal hmmm…
http://www.amazon.com/Coollaboratory-Liquid-Thermal-Interface-Material/dp/B0039RY3MM
I wonder if it would run and make a short circuit if applied to flashlights…
I think I might get a tube of Gelid GC-Extreme to try it out…
Weird the link will not attach so here it is plain text
Not for aluminum! Which rules out most flashlight applications.
From the Toms Hardware review - image from them.Lower is better.
here is some data that includes cheese
http://www.coollaboratory.com/en/products/liquid-copper/
No mention of issues with aluminum. It might be worth trying.
Has anybody tested… paste… you know, the tasty favorite snack of pre-schoolers everywhere? I’d try it but I’m gonna go and huff some freshly mimeographed tests…
There gave been quite a few test involving toothpastes and surprisingly enough it wasn’t worse than some thermal pastes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the liquid metal is an alloy of gallium which by itself isn’t that expensive.
Gallium and/or indium are used. Neither is a friend of aluminum or aluminium.
I am not even going to post in this thread.
no problem, can i ask why?
Probably because he doesn't think the hot rodding efforts are worth the marginal gains, so nobody else should bother doing something they might enjoy doing anyway.
No, it's not that at all. Those strawmen sure are easier to knock down though, aren't they?
Show me a test that shows any change at all in light output between a copper MCPCB with really bad thermal paste and a copper MCPCB soldered to the pill. Show me. I would think you would want to know if these things are real too, why am I the silly one by asking for the proof that these things actually work?
I assume the laws of thermodynamics apply so increased thermal transfer rate means the heat gets from one surface to another more easily when the interfaces are more thermally conductive. How much does that affect flashlights is a legitimate question, your saying not much, if someone wants to test this and provide some data then no one will object.
As the links i posted above demonstrate don’t use cheese in place of thermal compound
Share a Coke with Bort!
In a synthetic test where you have a tiny 1cm x 1cm patch and pumping 200 watts through it, those thermal paste charts are probably perfectly true. But change that to 30 watts through a 16mm diameter MCPCB and you can't measure any difference between the worst and the best. The difference is less than the margin of error of the measuring equipment.
Now, how much time, effort, & money (this is still 'budget light forum', right?) are you willing to invest for zero gain?
This does not mean the bottom of the MCPCB & top of the pill do not need to be flat. This does not mean a hollow pill is just as good as a solid pill. This does not mean a non-direct aluminum MCPCB with a dielectric layer in the middle is as good as a direct-thermal copper MCPCB. Do the proper prep work, that's far from 'none of this stuff matters'. The stuff that makes a difference matters. The stuff that does not make more light come out does not matter.
Bort is not one to change his avatar but this photo was impossible to resist 
your probably right, as an unknown person said “In God we trust; all others must bring data”
and:
