I am trying to understand how this circuit charges to 4 * VPeak. I followed the circuits for the doubler and tripler and understand both of those. I simulated the below in LTSpice and see that it works as a quadrupler. I am trying to understand the current flow and think a refresher of the basics might be in order.
I understand that capacitors pass AC and not DC. In my mind, I look at the right side of the transformer and keep ground at 0 and cycle the top side to +100 and -100. Assuming VPeak equals 100.
The first/biggest question I have...it looks like all the capacitors are polarized. If that is so, how can the capacitors on the top left be connected to AC? I understand that you cannot connect a polarized cap to AC, else BOOM!
If that is a book type, and these are regular caps, than I can think some more on this and figure how this charges to 4VPeak.
Though, it would be nice to see a dialog of what happens during each half cycle. I suspect that the right most capacitor is just there to smooth out the ripple. I suspect that to get to 4V, something gets to 3V and when you get the input positive half cycle, you get to 4v at the load.
I can probably figure that out, just the polarized caps at the start on the AC seem not so good?
Thanks for any help.