Re: 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>


The main reason I thought something happened was because someone told me 
that the laser ionizes the air and makes a path for the high voltage to 
follow. I doubt this, it seems like a rumor. Just wanted to see if anyone 
else had heard of this.

  Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> wrote:
Original poster: "c d by way of Terry Fritz "

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.
Untill my friend pointed a laser at my secondary.
I saw it and shut the coil down immediately.
No apparent harm done I commensed operating the coil agian
to my suprise 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 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. Thi! s secondary putout measured 26inch sparks
from 2 12000v30ma Nsts before the laser pointer.

I have since wraped a very similar secondary and am planning
on testing it against the laser marked secondary to see if
it really has been damaged. As soon as my garage warms up.

Honestly It freaked me out
wanted to ask you guys about it
but I was thinking I was totaly crazy.
Was just going to test it out and then say something, been
critisized for non scientific contributions :) needed some data

I used laquer as my coating for the secondary.
On 26awg on Plexiglass tube.

Chris



-Chris

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