Since like 3 months I’m using copper grease for the pills threads. It stains, so I only dare to use it in not accessible areas.
The grease fills out tiny spaces inside the threads and conducts heat and electricity as copper does. Very well.
However I have not conducted any scientific research on this, I got a feeling it helps a little.
I wonder (since I found very few information on BLF) are there other people using it? Any comments if so?
Only ever used it on the back of my mountain bike brake disc pads to alleviate brake squeal. If thermal transfer was my main aim, such as fitting temperature sensors, I would use thermal paste. Did this recently when fitting a PID to a coffee machine boiler.
On further thought, thermal paste is typically applied between the LED copper PCB and head units.
Right, by thermal paste does not conduct elecricity. At least not well.
Using a silver-based material would cost a little more, but would conduct better than copper.
i might consider using a heavily-doped silver-bearing paint or grease material. Radio shack used to sell such a product for repairing traces.
if you wanted to make some it would be possible to use a fine file and collect the particles on a clean paper, then transfer them to a pestle and mortar to crush them to a finer powder. Then mix this powder with some sort of binder: grease, wax, cream, oil, or even clear nail polish, depending upon whether lubricity or tackiness is needed in the thread. A little bit could go a long way and mom won’t miss her silver jewelry anyway—she would rather have gold…
This reminds me of a bet that I made with an electrician that aluminum was more conductive than copper. Turns out, it was silver that I was thinking of.
Are you using anti-seize compound or some other paste?
First of all, while silver does conduct current better than copper, it is only very slightly better. Conductivity is measured in units of Siemans per meter, S/m, where S = 1/ohm = A/V. Silver conducts electricity at 6.30×10^7 S/m while copper conducts at 5.96×10^7, a difference of only 0.34 S/m. Compare to Aluminum which conducts at 3.5×10^7 S/m or Titanium which conducts at 2.38×10^6 S/m or Stainless Steel which conducts at 1.45×10^6. The conductivity of silver and copper are not only relatively close but absolutely close.
Second of all, silver does not cost “a little more” than copper. It costs a lot more. Today silver costs $24.74/oz. while copper costs $3.20/lb., so silver is 123.7 times more expensive than copper. That’s two orders of magnitude more expensive for an itty bitty little gain in conductivity. The name of the specific economic principle this illustrates escapes me, but the basic gist of it is that if a product costs x, and to make it just a little better costs 100x, it must be seen that the product must remain at x level performance because that tiny little gain in performance is not worth the 100x cost.
Leave your mother’s jewelry alone.
The concept of “diminishing returns” I believe is what you are referring to. A side note, not only being softer, dramatically more expensive, and heavier, but it also reportedly machines very poorly even compared to copper.
It’s just a regular copper paste, ready tu use. Like those when you Google ‘copper paste’