A laser pointer killed my coil?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Chris Roberts by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <quezacotl_14000000000000-at-yahoo-dot-com>


I think I'm starting a trend of blowing things up. =\

I finally got my mini coil completed (I would show some pictures, but don't 
know how to post them) and decided to bring it over to a friend's house to 
show him. (It's wierd being able to fit a complete, unassembled coil in 
your car) While it was running, my friend had a laser pointer with him and 
pointed it at the coil. The second the red dot touched the breakout point, 
there was a popping noise, the coil stopped running, and there was a fire 
starting on the primary side of the open core and coil NST. (Let's see, 
that's about 1min 43 seconds of TOTAL run time before something blew up - 
is that some kind of record? =\ Now, did the laser pointer do this, (I 
think it's just a coincidence) did something else cause the NST to die, 
(there wasn't a saftey filter but I think that would hurt the secondary) or 
could it be that the NST is just somewhat old? Sigh - I wish I could build 
a tesla coil correctly for once.


-Chris

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm 
not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein