Re: A laser pointer killed my coil?

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Mddeming-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 1/21/03 9:45:37 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:


>Original poster: "c d by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><vbprg1-at-hotmail-dot-com>
>
>I had a similar experience
>I was running the coil on a very humid windy night outside
>hard to say for sure cause and effect, but I started the
>coil and ran it for about 30 seconds with very nice output,
>3x 24 inch sparks.
>Until my friend pointed a laser at my secondary.
>I saw it and shut the coil down immediately.
>No apparent harm done I commenced operating the coil again
>to my surprise it would no longer output sparks. I checked every
>connection, checked the capacitors, spark gap, transformers. Everything
>was fine. So reluctantly I attached breakout points to the
>torus and got it to put out 1 meager 12 inch spark.
>To this day that secondary does not seam to function as well.
>I even built a new primary and the best I can manage is
>18 inch sparks. This secondary putout measured 26inch sparks
>from 2 12000v30ma NSTs before the laser pointer.


        More likely, it was the human reaction to the laser that caused the 
problem. It's possible that the immediate shut-down created a voltage 
backlash from the collapsing magnetic field in the transformer(s) and 
partially cooked/zapped something. When you say you checked the 
transformers, did you check the performance curves against the originals, 
and the transformers against each other?

Philosophical Point:
        Because they can get up into an elephant's trunk, elephants are 
terrified of mice. If an elephant sees a mouse and runs amok, are the deep 
footprints in your front lawn due to the mouse or to the elephant? ;-)

Matt D.

"Buckle Up! It makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your 
vehicle" Bumper Sticker seen in W.Va.