Thermal paste for amp heat sink?

[chipper]

Hi, I have a Rockford Fosgate punch 150 one channel was sounding distorted (fuse was blown) replaced with a new one 6 amp. So it works good. But this is not the problem I took the whole circuit board out of the sink and I didn't feel comfortable puttng it back in because the white compound was all dried. What if I put it back in? Will the transistors short out due to the white compound being dried? Or should I put some new heat sink paste? Thanks

 

[Perry Babin]

Dry heatsink compound doesn't transfer heat well. It needs to be completely removed from the heatsink and transistors and replaced.

 

[chipper]

Dry heatsink compound doesn't transfer heat well. It needs to be completely removed from the heatsink and transistors and replaced.

Is there a certain compound to use for this? Or can i also use some sort of transistor insulator? Oh and radio shack has compund but immnot exactly sure if it's the right type or not. Thanks

 

[Perry Babin]

The compound at radio shack isn't always the greatest quality but it's much better than dried out compound. If you don't plan on doing much more repair work, use the radio shack heatsink compound. If you are going to do repairs in the future, buy a tube of Dow Corning 340.