John Solid has captured some fantastic tesla coil discharge pictures using his solid state tesla coil . There are pictures and descriptions of the entire project.

“The Magnifier Coil has a resonant frequency of 150.3 KHz. It is wound on a 5.625 outside diameter PVC pipe. The winding length is 21.9 inches made of 24 guage enamel insulated magnet wire. The capacitive load for the coil is a toroid constructed of 6 in diameter flexible aluminum duct wrapped around a 12 inch diameter plastic pail lid. A high voltage CRT cable (18 guage wire, insulation rated at 40 KV) connects the magnifier coil to the solid state controller.

The controller is built inside of a metal case with easy access to the power and control sections. The power section contains 160VDC supply, MOSFET bridge, bridge supply, bridge driver circuitry and the ferrite output transformer. A fan is positioned to cool the MOSFETs and the voltage regulators in the bridge power supply.”