Do thermal pads passively dissipate heat like heatsinks?

[TeaForJoy]

Hello, I am working on a school project where I'm developing an thermometer but I have a small problem the main board with the sensor has a big copper plane which acts as a heatsink. So I was wondering if I could use an thermal pad as an high temp insulator but I'm not sure if it wouldn't just make the heat dissipation higher. Thank you for your time and I'll appreciate any feedback.

[Kilrah]

1 minute ago, TeaForJoy said:

I was wondering if I could use an thermal pad as an high temp insulator

Thermal pads are meant to be the opposite of an insulator and conduct heat.

[Bitter]

So you need to isolate the thermistor from the board to prevent the leads from wicking heat away from it and changing the reading?

[TeaForJoy]

7 hours ago, Bitter said:

So you need to isolate the thermistor from the board to prevent the leads from wicking heat away from it and changing the reading?

Yes that's right. But it's to lower the time needed to reach equilibrium since I'm using an temperature sensor with I2C interface. The sensor convert's temperature to binary from the heat that wicks up it's ground pin. Also should add I'm using a double sided PCB and the other side acts as a passive heatsink which increases the time needed for it to show the proper temperature.

[Bitter]

Would attaching the sensor to a wire with less thermal conductivity help?

[TeaForJoy]

Okay figured it out, my thermal pad sort of worked but wasn't that good since it still conducted some heat away, but I totally forgot that plasti dip and rubber coating existed and that's precisely what I was looking for. Thank you all for all of the responses.

[Bitter]

1 hour ago, TeaForJoy said:

Okay figured it out, my thermal pad sort of worked but wasn't that good since it still conducted some heat away, but I totally forgot that plasti dip and rubber coating existed and that's precisely what I was looking for. Thank you all for all of the responses.

Strips of foam rubber self adhesive insulation (aka window weather stip) would probably work pretty well, for lighter thermal insulation in cars I've been digging Frostking FV516, way too big for your use, but they do sell it in a thinner strip for wrapping pipe under FV15H, it's got an R value of 2.0.