This is my first attempt at building a high voltage impulse generator, better known as
a "Marx" generator, after its inventor, Erwin Marx. This is similar to a capacitor-diode voltage multiplier, but produces the voltage multiplication in brief pulses rather than continuously.

The circuit has 16 stages, each consisting of a 1 nF 20,000V capacitor, with 880k resistors on both the high and low side. Each 880k resistor actually consists of 4 220k resistors in series. This was done to divide the voltage across the resistors to prevent high voltage from
jumping over the resistor from one lead to the other.

The High Voltage DC source for the input to the generator is the same as i used in my voltage multiplier video, which provides more detail on the design:

[ Ссылка ]

The biggest arcs i managed to produce were 9.5" (24 cm) long at 320,000 volts. In theory, 320,000 volts should only cross ~4" (10~11 cm), because the breakdown voltage of air at 1 atmosphere is ~3MV/m. However, because of the sharp point on the positive electrode, a concentration of electrical charge forms which increases the effective voltage across
the terminals. Because of that, actual breakdown voltage ends up being 1~2 MV/m depending on electrode geometry

The arcs are long, but not particularly powerful. At 20KV, each 1nF capacitor only stores 0.2 Joules of energy, so an arc at full charge would contain no more than 3.2 Joules of energy.

Parts of interest:

20 KV / 1 nF caps:
[ Ссылка ]

20 KV / 100 mA Diodes:
[ Ссылка ]

Flyback Transformer Core(s):
[ Ссылка ]

Music:
Serge Pavkin - Digital Future
Serve Pavkin - Fundamental Analysis
Serge Pavkin - Modern Technology

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