I was wondering how high of a voltage I could possibly get using only a single bridge rectifier and passive components and came up with this. I'm actually amazed at how good the power factor and output ripple look for such a a simple circuit; especially while producing almost 10X the peak input voltage.
An important thing to note is that although the power factor seems good over a wide range, the input power is essentially constant from no load up to about 10 W, so efficiency depends heavily on the degree of loading. I'm still working out the actual relationship but if anyone has a concise description of what it should be I'd be interested in reading it.
To me the key really just appears to be the combined effect of the input and output reactors. At first I thought that unless they were identical, performance might suffer but a few basic tests at unbalancing them suggest that may not strictly be the case.
Finding ~700 mH inductors with under 50 ohms of AC resistance may not be easy but if you can find an E core with a rewindable bobin its absolutely possible to make one. Otherwise I'd imagine you could probably use some larger oil-filled caps and smaller inductors - just so long as you can get a high enough Q factor overall to justify the resonator stage.
