[Amps] Why a voltage doubler ?

[Bryan Swadener]

Hi Paul,
No matter the rectifier, it's all about stored energy. To a point, all that matters in any rectifier is having enough energy stored in the filter to handle the load current between rectifier pulses. If you have enough storage, even a halfwave rectifier is good enough. And, as the frequency is increased, less capacitance is needed, because the time between rectifier pulses is decreased. Though, in any rectifier, at some point, increased storage no longer helps. It just becomes a more powerful bomb when shorted. :-O
There are fullwave and halfwave doubler rectifiers. This explains how each works: http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/blog/voltage-multiplier-circuit.html. As you can see, voltage multipliers aren't limited to doublers. :-)
The one thing that has the biggest effect on regulation is DCR. In a doubler, the current in the source is double whatever the load current is, and series R (and other loss) has the biggest effect on output voltage. The secondary DCR in my HV xfmr rewind (Vsec = 1180/1266/1353/1440V) is 6 ohms. Because it'll run at about half the maximum load current, dynamic stability will NOT be an issue.
vy 73,Bryan WA7PRC
      Date: Sat, 13 May 2017 16:32:23 -0700
From: Paul Baldock <paul at paulbaldock.com>
To: "amps" <amps at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [Amps] Why a voltage doubler ?

Doesn't a full wave bridge give you better regulation as all 
capacitors are charged on both halves of the AC waveform, where as 
with a voltage doubler the capacitors are only charged on half the 
waveform (half on the positive and half on the negative)?

- Paul