Cockcroft-Walton ×4 multiplier
10 parts
Two Greinacher stages stacked into the classic half-wave ladder: the AC-column caps shuttle charge up the diode zigzag, the DC column stores it. From a 10 V-peak input the ideal answer is 4·Vpk = 40 V — measured, the ladder tops out at 38.3 V unloaded (the diode drops take the first 1.7 V) and sags to a 35.0 V mean with 1.0 Vpp ripple under the 100 kΩ load. That droop is the real cost of every CW stack. The caps start pre-charged to the measured steady state; clear their initial conditions to watch the ladder pump up from zero over many cycles.
- V1 10V·2kHz
- C1 470nF
- D1
- D2
- C2 470nF
- C3 470nF
- C4 470nF
- D3
- D4
- R1 100kΩ
