SDG #130 High Voltage Cockroft Walton Multiplier for ESD Simulator with PCBs from JLCPCB

This build tackles a genuinely tricky bit of analogue design: a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier ladder intended to feed an ESD simulator, built on proper fabricated PCBs rather than the usual rat’s nest of flying diodes and capacitors. The appeal of the topology is that each diode and capacitor only ever sees a fraction of the final output, so a modest AC input and a stack of cheap parts can be pushed into the multi-kilovolt range without exotic components.

The interesting engineering content is in the practical constraints rather than the textbook maths. Board layout for kilovolt potentials means thinking about creepage and clearance between stages, rounding off sharp copper features that would otherwise start corona discharge, keeping the ladder physically compact enough to limit stray capacitance, and deciding where solder mask and bare substrate help or hurt. Component selection matters too: diode reverse voltage and recovery behaviour set the usable drive frequency, while capacitor voltage rating and value determine both ripple and how much current the stack can deliver under load, which is exactly what an ESD discharge network needs.

The wider point for anyone considering a similar project is that a multiplier’s no load output looks impressive but sags quickly once you draw real current, so the number of stages, capacitor size and drive frequency all have to be chosen together for the intended application. Anyone interested in ESD testing, HV experiments or simply learning how to lay out a board that will not flash over will find useful, transferable technique here, including where a fabricated PCB genuinely beats point to point wiring and where it introduces new problems.