I got 5 free 450v 4700uf capacitors that I put in parallel to form a 23500uf 450v capacitor bank (2.4kJ) in hopes of building a can crusher and later a railgun. I built a voltage tripler from four 350v 10uf capacitors and 4 400v 6A diodes. It outputs 500v (which is okay because the capacitors have a surge of 550v), but the capacitor bank still won't charge past 150v. I assume this is because the charger is not outputting enough current to compensate for the capacitors' leak rate. When I try to test how much current it is outputting with my multimeter, the first capacitor in the charger dies, so I don't have any way to measure the current (and my scope maxes out at 400v).
Is there a simple fix for this? Or am I better off using a different charger design? What other charger designs could I use? Thanks.