I've got a virtual isolation transformer by connecting two 12V transformers at the secondaries, so the input to my circuit is an isolated 120VAC (US).
I'm creating a 2 level Greinacher style voltage multiplier, so a voltage quadrupler, roughly. Based on my simulations, about 1uF for the caps ought to get me up to a bit under 440V (anywhere in the 400V arena is fine).
Does it matter what kind of caps I use? Will a 500V rating be sufficient?
Edit: It just occurred to me that the 4 caps that are part of the multiplyer never see more than about 220V or so across them. The only cap that would see the full 440V or so would be the filter cap, as only one other cap, in the first level of the multiplier, references ground. The others reference the previous stage which is ~220V less.
Best Answer
You are totally correct on the voltage front, polarized should be fine, i wasn't looking at the diagram correctly. That being said when using polarized capacitors a 50% safety margin is recommended because they tend to fail in very spectacular ways, both aluminum and tantalum. Please be careful.