Power Supply- Beryllium Oxide Thermal Conductor

I recently visited my Great Uncle Mike, who has an amazing inventory of electronic parts in his workshop. I talked to him about some of my problems with past projects and how I'm still learning about electronics. One of the projects that could be improved is my bench power supply. When I first added the 3.3 volt rail, I used thermally conductive double stick tape to attach the regulator to the heat sink because I didn't know any better. It needs to be electrically isolated because the tab is connected to the output of the regulator instead of connected to ground. He suggested a much better solution- a beryllium oxide ceramic material. BeO is about as thermally conductive as copper, but not electrically conductive. He said that this type of material is not used much in consumer electronics because it is expensive and the dust from it is highly toxic. It might be more commonly used by the military or NASA.