Originally Posted by kschachn
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
"Over top" not "in between". Dielectric grease is an insulator. For use with batteries, make up the cable to the terminal and then put the grease over top. If you put the grease on the terminal and then put on the cable you run the risk of totally actually insulating one from the other. However, folks get away with it because like a previous poster said the grease might be "squeezed "out enough to still have a metal to metal connection.
A common notion but incorrect.Yes dielectric grease as such does not conduct electricity but it doesn't matter. You don't want electricity flowing between gaps in conductors anyway, the grease does not inhibit conduction where metal-to-metal contact occurs. This subject comes up on here from time to time and there are studies you can find which show that using dielectric grease inside a connector does not impede current flow. If the contacts aren't making contact, then you aren't getting current anyway unless it is arcing.
You're not "getting away" with anything. If the connection isn't tight then the presence of grease or no grease isn't going to matter.
I respectfully disagree (or maybe I'm agreeing?)
On the e30 in my sig below my drivers side fog light would always flicker. Been this way since I bought the car 16 years ago.
The bulb (incandescent) was fine, but only when I played with the wiring harness behind the light, did the bulb illuminate.
I was convinced the only way to fix this problem was by getting a new harness to plug into the back of the light, as the contacts on both the harness and light were showing signs of corrosion.
On a whim (maybe it was laziness) I tried slathering some dielectric grease into the light housing socket.
Sure enough when I went to try it again, the light worked flawlessly (no more flickering).