After more than 12 months of preparatory work and various basic articles on the subject, the world’s first and only real measuring station for thermal paste and thermal pad analyses in accordance with ASTM D5470-17 is finally complete and already in daily use. Whether it’s the thermal conductivity or thermal resistance of thermally conductive materials or a material analysis, I can actually test (almost) everything and not just evaluate it subjectively. I have already teased you sporadically from time to time, but the databases will also gradually go online separately for pastes, putties, PTM and sheets.
Both the Keyence VHX 7000 from 2023 and now the TIMA5 from Nanotest in 2024 are part of a well-structured plan to restructure the content of my work, which will be joined in the foreseeable future by a completely redesigned fan measuring stand with professional sensors and extended infrared measurements through to thermal microscopy. So it remains exciting, because nobody needs superfluous things like the dragster drama. That’s exactly why I only use professional equipment and monitor all tests personally. That’s what I’ve learned from experience.
The data sheet for the TIMA5 is of course included, it’s just a quick read, I promise:
TIMA_5-23_datasheet-3
External cooling is provided by a laboratory chiller from IKA, which can maintain the water temperature almost to the nearest decimal place and can not only cool, but also reheat if necessary, so that the required 20 °C water temperature can always be maintained. The hoses were connected using Festo couplings and special hoses. The room is air-conditioned with a Mitsubishi split system and 3.5 kW output, which, like the chiller, can not only cool but also heat in order to maintain the selected temperature window as precisely as possible. I can’t go any further here.
Summary and conclusion
The disclosure of technology and methods, such as today, is part of transparent work and so I cannot and did not want to withhold the necessary theoretical basics from you today, even if it might have been pretty hard stuff for most people. But it is essential to write something about it, because the information currently circulating in the data sheets on the individual thermal conductive pastes is almost always not worth the paper on which the PDF was not printed. And it will certainly also create a small amount of work for the packaging industry if many boxes and package inserts have to be reprinted. Because what we have also learned today is the huge gap between marketing, advertising promises and the lack of information on the test conditions for such value determinations on the one hand and the actual effective thermal conductivities on the other.
Many people don’t even know this: Since pastes and pads are heterogeneous materials, the answer to the question of a general thermal conductivity that could be objectively expressed in a single value is quite difficult!
However, as a paying buyer of such products, the customer deserves the unvarnished truth, as he is also paying for the many miracle products. And not too little. This is exactly what triggered me years ago and it was finally time to implement the counter-tests in a scientifically accurate yet media-effective and mass-market way. Or to put it in a nutshell: We should turn off the tap on all this paste esotericism.
The business with pastes and pads is booming, especially in times of ever-increasing heat densities and power losses. And it is precisely at this point that I have set myself the goal of providing objective guidance and exposing marketing lies. The profit margins in this business are huge and so the prospect of making a quick buck also brings many suppliers onto the scene whose products are not worth the money or where properties are advertised that are simply not true. Simply checking this is actually impossible, at least it has been until now.
Here is a link to the most important basics of thermal conductive pastes (and pads) for a better understanding of the relationships as well as a video on TIMA5 from DuPont:
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