DIY Cockcroft-Walton Generator Produces 100,000+ Volts
Mirko Pavleski’s cascading capacitor and diode setup used to produce extremely high voltages.
Do you need to produce 100,000 volts or more? Most likely you do not. Should you? As with most any project featured on Hackster, it’s very much an at-your-own-risk proposition. Perhaps you would be best off living vicariously through Mirko Pavleski’s video, where he shows off his Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier.
This impressive device is able to generate voltages that arc between contacts spaced out roughly 10cm (~4 inches). Notably, the on/off switch for the device is far away from the actual arcing contacts, and there are several stages needed to get to this ridiculously high voltage potential. Build info is seen toward the end of the video, and schematics are linked in the video description.
To generate this voltage, the system uses a transformer/rectifier to produce a 15V, 5A output from AC mains power. Next, a driver circuit and flyback transformer from an old TV outputs – a still rather high – 10,000 volts AC. This is then passed along to the actual Cockroft-Walton setup, which multiplies the input using of a chain of cascading high voltage diodes and capacitors. These components are mounted on standoffs in a highly insulative substrate to isolate each element, and finally sent to a pair of contacts to arc impressively.
