I'd like to be able to generate significant voltages of DC for experimentation purposes, but so far am having difficulty in creating/sustaining such high voltages. My hope is that the answer may lie in building a voltage multiplier, but I know very little about such technology. It seems I could potentially build one if I knew what components to get and how to configure them. Any help would be appreciated.
yes, you can use ordinary diodes and caps for this. The difficulty is in adequate separation and insulation between stages. For example, if you start with 120 volts ac, from a simple isolation transformer, you can get 160 volts per stage. You need 400 volt diodes, although I'd get 800 volt ones for extra margin, such as 1N4008, as the price difference is small. For the caps, it depends on the current. I'd get perhaps 20?F caps. You need only 200 volts, but I'd try for 400 volts for extra margin, in case one stage dies. reference has more details. edit: I'd be sure to use lots of fuses, like 1 amp ones. And I'd get some high voltage resistors, so you could build a voltage divider to measure voltages. For example, a 100:1 divider could be a 99 M ohm and 1 M ohm. The 99 M could be 4 - 22 M and 1 - 11M. You may have to adjust the 1 M upwards to compensate for your voltmeter resistance. A thousand to 1 would be a 1 Gohm resistor and a 1 M resistor. You can get the Gohm from places like Victoreen, or build it up from smaller resistors. Note that 1/4 watt resistors usually have a max voltage rating of 450 volts. I have seen web pages that go into detail on how to do this, re epoxy and other techniques to maintain the high voltage. .
