Build Your Own Tesla Coils

This is the second prototype of a coil ultimately intended for the physics department at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. The going is a bit slow since niether Pete nor I have the money to sink into it. I called one of the better known suppliers of spun aluminum toroids and got a quote for a discharge terminal that has since sent me on my way through the machine technology program at O.C.C. High voltatge capacitors for such a device are also not exactly cheep so weve been attempting to design one. This photo was taken during the short time one of the capacitor designs survived. Dielectrics dont seem to behave quite as advertised when subjected to potentials in excess of twenty thousand volts oscillating above three hundred and fifty kilohertz. The supply transformer delivers something just shy of one kilowatt.
http://www.edm.net/~jwilliams/tesla.html