Let's build a voltage multiplier!

In this video, I explain the how a Dickson charge pump operates and how to build a basic example.
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Special thanks to these supporters for making this video possible:
Adrien Friggeri, Aleksey Smolenchuk, Alex, Alex Black, An Dương, Anthony Weems, anula, Ben, Ben Cochran, Ben Kamens, Ben Williams, Bill Cooksey, Bill Watkins, Binh Tran, Богдан Федоров, Bradley Stach, Burt Humburg, Carl Fooks, Carsten Schwender, Chai, Chris Anders, Chris Lajoie, Chris Sachs, criis, Daniel Jeppsson, Daniel Pink, Daniel Tang, Darrell Burgoon, Dave Walter, David Clark, David Cox, David Dawkins, David House, David Sastre Medina, David Turner, Dean Bevan, Dean Winger, Deep Kalra, Dennis Henderson, Dennis Schubert, Dilip Gowda, Dirk Sperling, Dmitry Guyvoronsky, Dušan Dželebdžić, Dustin Campbell, Dzevad Trumic, Emilio Mendoza, Eric Dynowski, Erik Broeders, Erik Granlund, Ethan Sifferman, Eugene Bulkin, Evan Serrano, Evan Thayer, Eveli László, EvinSaysMarxWasRight!, Florian Bürgi, Florian Rian, fxshlein, George Miroshnykov, ghostdunk, GusGold, Humberto Bruni, Ingo Eble, Ivan Esparza, Jack McCracken, Jacob Ford, James Beldock, James Capuder, Jared Dziedzic, Jason Bowen, Jason DeStefano, Jason Dew, Jason Thorpe, JavaXP, Jaxon Ketterman, jemmons, Jeremy Cole, Jesse Miller, Jim Kelly, Jim Knowler, Joe Beda, Joe Pregracke, Joe Rork, Joel Miller, Joey Murphy, John Hamberger jn., John Henning, John Meade, Jon Dugan, Jonn Miller, Joseph Portaro, Jurģis Brigmanis, Justin Graziani, Kai Wells, Kefen, Ken Paul, Kenneth Christensen, Kyle Kellogg, Lambda GPU Workstations, László Bácsi, Leo K, Lithou, Lord Dorogoth, Lukasz Pacholik, Marcos Fujisawa, Marcus Classon, Mark Day, Martin Noble, MatrixSenpai, Mats Fredriksson, Matt Krueger, Matthäus Pawelczyk, melvin2001, Michael Koreshkov, MICHAEL SLASS, Michael Tedder, Michael Timbrook, Michael Weitman, Miguel Ríos, mikebad, Mikel Lindsaar, Miles Macchiaroli, Muqeet Mujahid, NacOJerk, Nate Welch, Nicholas Counts, Nicholas Moresco, Nick Chapman, Oli Homer, Ori Shamir, Örn Arnarson, Paul Heller, Paul Pluzhnikov, Pete Dietl, Phil Dennis, Philip Hofstetter, ProgrammerDor, Ralph Irons, Randal Masutani, Randy True, raoulvp, real_huitz, ReJ aka Renaldas Zioma, Ric King, Rick Hennigan, Robert Diaz, Robert Keown, Robey Pointer, Roland Munsil, Sagnik Bhattacharya, Scott Gorlick, Scott Holmes, Sean Patrick O’Brien, Sergey Kruk, Shane Mulcahy, SonOfSofaman, Spencer Ruport, Splashtwist, Stefan Nesinger, Stephen Kovalcik, Stephen Riley, Steve Jones, TheWebMachine, Thomas Eriksen, Tim Oriol, Tim Walkowski, Tim Wheeler, Tom, Tom Knowles, Tom Smith, Tyler Latham, Usseod, Vincent Bernat, Warren Miller, Wim Coekaerts, xisente, Yee Lam Wan

[@szymoniak75]

I'ts mindblowing how you can explain everything in such an easy to understand manner

[@unclefreddy2009]

Absolutely incredible, all this time over years trying to learn electronics and watching single videos with his clear examples and it’s all resolved in minutes. What a talent.

[@alexc4924]

@@unclefreddy2009 i think it all depends on finding the right video for your knowledge level. Eventually you'll find those other videos also useful

[@jeremyking8485]

So many explanations get made infinitely more confusing because the person explaining it doesnt really understand it either. Ben is the goat

[@ohnoitisnt]

Things are easy to simplify if you understand a topic down to its fundamentals

[@cruelfish4824]

Easy to understand? Today I learned, I am dumb.

[@ArnavBarbaad]

Ben is two steps away from becoming Electroboom

[@nguyentruongphu1383]

They should do a collab one day

[@Chris-ib8lw]

Just a few electrocutions away you mean... 😁

[@yuanheli307]

Step one, be almost died.

[@TheBarretNL]

Hahaha, best comment. :D

[@jakobpa1189]

Yeah But He doesn't mess Up s thousend Times

[@GoughCustom]

Demonstrating this by actually moving the capacitor, and then also with a mechanical switch, is an amazing way to show how this circuit works! Thanks for the wonderful videos!

[@pauls5745]

ya I thought the switch was an elegant way to show what's going on here

[@-danR]

I fear for his life. The giant transformer industry will not stand for this threat to their vested interests! Have you ever heard of a living inventor of a real working perpetual motion machine? Didn't think so. ( 🤪 )

[@davelowets]

@@-danR Living or not, that's not possible. Perpetual motion machines can not be invented.

[@jeanbaumann5402]

@@davelowets that was the joke you missed

[@jimmio3727]

@@davelowets This may not be true. Superfluidics may be perpetually in motion; that doesn't mean we can ever extract work from said perpetual motion if the papers turn out to be true.

[@peteleoni9665]

70 years old. Messing with electronics my whole life. This is the 1st time I have actually "groked" this. You sir really are the best.

[@sakshatlakhiani847]

I am an electronics student. None of my professors is capable of elucidating in such a manner. Huge Thanks for being on youtube and sharing the knowledge.

[@bitlong4669]

Right?!, profs got this attitude as if you already supposed to know what they are talking about. Books also are written like that. Way to learn stuff is to watch KZbin first, then dive into the book lol.

[@rockytom5889]

Yeah, academics be like that. I had an easier time learning C for my programming classes by reading the linux manpages for it, than by listening to my prof talk inaccurate gibberish about it.

[@whannabi]

@@rockytom5889 man pages are fine but sometimes it's a bit cloudy so finding examples also helps in these cases

[@alexanderkuhn2298]

Gotta love it when you ask a specific question like "what is that capacitor there on the schematic for?" and they come back with something like "yeah that cap is there, helping the capacitance on that line, but this should already be common knowledge...uhhh moving on"

[@cheeselemon89]

i was today years old when i saw the word : elucidate.

[@chriskaprys]

Really appreciate the way you build on one idea at a time this way. It’s a rarity to learn from a teacher who is attuned to the student’s perspective (how it feels to not have the knowledge being taught).

[@ZoonCrypticon]

Yes. very rare ...!

[@shaunclarke94]

I've learned so much from his videos for that reason. Starts with the basics then builds on it. His logic videos were amazing.

[@whannabi]

@@shaunclarke94 yep, same for binary negative numbers. The advantage with that is that if you ever forget or come back after a long time, you can try to find it back with logic

[@nikbivation]

yes! exactly!

[@josephpaolilli9229]

Absolutely! There are many youtube channels showing really cool electronic builds and concepts, but this is the only one I know of that is paced for learners. Not to disparage those other channels, but the rest go so fast through the material that each video requires independent study (and sometimes frame by frame review) to actually understand and appreciate whats being presented. With a basic electronic education (all the laws and understanding of most passive and active components) I can just watch Ben's videos and feel as though I really learned something by the end.

[@josepalacid]

I've seen thousands of educational videos trying to explain different concepts on different disciplines. There's nothing like this anywhere, not in youtube not in payed content. Societies need people like you to grow and step into the future, more than any other thing. If our future is on education, then your ability is precious. Please: KEEP-IT-UP!

[@daytradersanonymous9955]

Engineering Mindset. Channel🤌

[@TadaHrd]

Why don't people take Ben Eater as an example?

[@josepalacid]

@@TadaHrd I my most humble opinion, maybe because Mr Eater* innate ability to teach is so scarce that can be seen as a gift? It's really hard to get in the learner's POV, when you are way ahead in any discipline, and TEACH others. Most of entitled teach are more likely to show how much they know, than to transmit their knowledge. *(even he is younger than me, I feel the urge to use this treatment to be aligned with my admiration to his work)

[@michaelmalzacher6018]

you seem to understand this stuff on a intuitive level that nobody else on youtube does i swear. im new to electronics/circuitry, but its still so clear that you really really know what you're talking about

[@tlniec]

Building up to a DC/DC converter circuit by gradually introducing capacitors, physical switches, and diodes... then moving on to a clock signal and MOSFET... was brilliant! This is the most intuitive way I've seen a power supply Circuit explained, and I'd love to see a similar approach for other topolgies!

[@kindlin]

You should see his entire 44-video _Breadboard computer,_ where he starts with diodes and flip-flops, makes a clock, ram, an adder or two, control circuitry, and can write a program on his own hardware to calculate the Fibonacci sequence up to 256 (8-bit adders/ram/bus). It's literally amazing and I couldn't wait for each episode to come out, it took ages! lol

[@abdyfranco]

It is amazing the way he explains things, starting with the basics that anyone can understand and gradually increasing in complexity.

[@alexserdukov1595]

This isn’t dc dc voltage converter This is ac/dc voltage multiplier, in this example it turns low voltage square wave to the high voltage dc But it would also work with sine wave ac current from the grid (while dc dc converter won’t)

[@benjaminmuller9348]

@@alexserdukov1595 except it is, the 555 is Part of the circuit and runs on DC

[@rogerramjet6429]

@@alexserdukov1595 it's actually a square wave not AC. Similar effect but different principles of operation.

[@superspak]

As a mechanical engineer trying to understand electrical/computer engineering more, this channel is a goldmine. Keep up the great work.

[@jayvonirsik7232]

Right. I thought I would be able to just slide right in but yeah I found that I am like a new born to an 80 yr old man.

[@superspak]

@@jimbobb3509 I mean it's harder to integrate improvements in that type of infrastructure. At least they are making all those skyscrapers that can survive earthquakes I guess 🤷

[@rfariavitor]

That makes two of us. It's exactly the same story here. A mechanical engineer that was hired by a company that designs and produces electronic devices and respective software, and now he's amazed by this world of electronics.

[@johnmarks714]

As an electronics hobbyist, Id like to understand mechanical engineering. Any resources to recommend?

[@bryancmcdonald3978]

Heat flows from hot to cold talk to a guidance counselor and walk out the door. === Electrical engineering guidance counselor told me don't take astronomy and I know why now. ==== I , loved the lab . === We're passing around cheapo American made $5,000 binoculars etc. ==== Head start parties it was a lot of fun for astronomy majors. 👋😎💨 Bryan 🐎💨💕

[@KarldorisLambley]

This video is EXACTLY what I needed to see. It featured a concept I have had difficulty understanding in a way which made things perfectly lucid. The business with the switch was a fantastic way of explaining things. I love Mr B.Eater's videos and his laconic American teacher voice. This man should be in a classroom/lecture hall teaching. (I also found his 555IC video to be similarly amazing). He is like electroboom without a body, monobrowbrow, or electric shocks/sparks.

[@1pcfred]

Voltages in series add up. It's why we combine cells into batteries. Here he's just substituting a charged capacitor for another battery. But then he charges the capacitor with the original battery. If you take a 9V battery apart you're find six 1.5V cells in it. There's two styles. There's the packs and there's the cylinders. Packs are stacked and cylinders are side by side. Also 9V battery cases are always made out of sheet metal that's one hundredth of an inch thick. So I use them as shim stock a lot. Don't matter who made the battery it's always 0.01" Must be some battery cabal conspiracy stuff.

[@_droid]

Of course at the end of that multiplier you could put a much larger capacitor that gets charged over a period of time. Then you can feel the full power of the Force. I use it for tack welding small parts.

[@tmvkrpxl0135]

Ben is stepping into the dark side! It's really weird to see him dealing with not-so-soft voltage level

[@xabab]

Damn, it've been years since I saw that pink-black checker pattern of the profile picture of yours

[@snazz1363]

@@xabab gmod?

[@xabab]

@@snazz1363 Yep. Seems like someone forgot to install CS:S 😂

[@whannabi]

Time to collab with styropyro

[@SomeRandomPiggo]

@@xabab The addon "GBombs 5" is creating errors, check the console for details.

[@wewillrockyou1986]

This was probably my favourite thing I learned from an electrical engineering course I did over a summer when I was 14... I may have blown up a cap or two trying to charge them to 1kv with a boost converter...

[@clairekholin6935]

Well, what else would you do with them?

[@charliewatsonlake8618]

My earliest memory of electronics is sitting at the table after playing with a breadboard kit I had, grabbing an LED and connecting it straight to a 9V battery. My mum nearly had a heart attack

[@amarissimus29]

​@@charliewatsonlake8618 You had one of those mothers that couldn't handle seeing a tiny light briefly illuminated too, huh. Or was the LED a family heirloom? Well, I'm sure this makes sense to someone.

[@6LayersDeep]

@@amarissimus29 😂

[@charliewatsonlake8618]

@@amarissimus29 it blow up

[@Rudster14]

I just graduated with a focus in electrical engineering and you are explaining these concepts so much better than many of my professors. Thanks!

[@dengdaniel2388]

Seriously this is the best explanation of a 555 timer i have ever gotten in my life . I don't think there's a better way to make someone easily learn it. Much appreciated

[@mattsains]

I’ve literally been stuck on a project for a while because I need to generate a high voltage waveform at low frequencies and this has helped me overcome my limited knowledge. Excited to use it!

[@williamcohron2380]

Great video on Charge Pump theory. It's a fantastic visualization of the breakdown of the process. Of course, there are simple single IC examples of DC-DC Charge Pump using a couple passives as well as Buck-Boost versions using a small inductor, but this provides great fundamentals of the process.

[@stevent1074]

After hundreds of hours of education and thousands of hours field experience, this is hands down the best explanation I’ve seen of boosting voltage with reactive power. First video I’ve ever downloaded to use for teaching! This video is going to spark lightbulbs above many heads. Kudos Ben and Thank You

[@AJRobinson]

I haven't even gotten past 2 minutes and you've already perfectly explained how a charge pump works. I can't wait for the rest of the video, thank you Ben!

[@IslandHermit]

I love the way you're able to break things down into simple, demonstrable steps that build on each other. Great work!

[@sirflimflam]

Ben you are absolutely my favorite youtuber for this sort of thing. The way you're able to break down even complex stuff is really good.

[@cagankahraman4031]

The most remarkable thing I've noticed in the video is the way he magicly switches between colors at 4:56

[@rhymereason3449]

I've never been about to get such an intuitive feeling for how charge pumps work before - good job! You're a great teacher 🤩

[@ori61511]

You're the best ben

[@sadhlife]

I agree he is indeed the best

[@Napert]

How

[@Mauricetz]

Then who's the worst ben

[@murasaki848]

@@Mauricetz Benedict Arnold?

[@zbll2406]

Really good video. Suggestion: can you make a video about boost/buck DC-DC converters? They use the same principle I think, but also use an inductor

[@alexc4924]

The principle is kinda similar but also quite different, but I think he could explain it in the same style. I find inductors are a little less intuitive.

[@JDTeam]

@@alexc4924 inductors are less intuitive, because there isnt really any everyday object that act quite like them. But the main thing to understand is they have ""momentum"" to move current, and if you switch the circuit off, they will rise the voltage until either the current starts to flow again , or they run out of ""momentum""

[@elpatosilva]

Joule thief is a basic example. Buck converters use the principle of induction and it is not easy to understand witout a backgroud.

[@totally_not_a_bot]

@@JDTeam Sounds like a flywheel?

[@murasaki848]

@@JDTeam You can describe inductors in terms of long water pipes. When you have a large mass of water moving in a pipe, suddenly shutting a valve at the end causes "water hammer", i.e. that momentum in the water to develops a high pressure if there is nothing in the line to redirect the momentum to (e.g. a hammer arrestor in the water line, or a flyback diode across an inductor). Though it's more complicated in electricity because the magnetic field is part of the "storage" of momentum, it's pretty much the same principle. Electric current, like water current, has momentum, and doesn't like to change.

[@gilbertcuoco]

I think I've never seen a better explaination of this kind of circuitry as you did. This is absolutely awesome!

[@tomsmith3045]

Best demo of a charge pump that I've ever seen! Really clear, concise, and fun. To the folks out there that want to play with this more, there is a DIP IC, the 7660, that is specialized to do this very thing, that used to be commonly used to generate a negative voltage where you need a low current negative voltage to run some sort of signaling or analog circuit.

[@chrisj2848]

Ben you are an incredible educator. You have an amazing ability to break stuff down so that it seems intuitive. Please write a book! 👍

[@joshfee3394]

Would love a similar video on switching regulators. None of the resources I've seen so far have really made it make intuitive sense, but all of your videos are amazing explanations.

[@josh1776]

I’m a computer engineer taking lots of EE classes and this video was more educational on circuitry than any lecture I’ve ever had

[@umutk5614]

The way you explain things are so clear that I understand them very clearly and always remember. Thank you Ben 🤗

[@Grendel1974]

I am a beginner at building and testing and will be teaching my sons I am a low volt tech but during my apprenticeship the rule was follow manufactures instructions. I have gotten bored with that after 22 years lol now looking at playing not working 😵‍💫 it’s nice to see there is people willing to share knowledge Thank you

[@minikretz1]

You're education process is amazing. You start out with a very simple idea and explain a goal. Then you just add one step at a time which each step is simple. By the end we have a somewhat complicated set up but we understand why each individual part is added. Great videos!

[@himoffthequakeroatbox4320]

* Your

[@user-ir4ch6df2p]

I'm new at electronics, being 50 years old I didn't think I would be able to pick the theory up. That was before this gentleman, he has such a focused, A to B technique making very practical demonstrations highlighting the theory in action. So glad I found this, have already learned so much.

[@1noryb]

Best explanation I have heard! Brings back memories of figuring this out while investigating a CRT flyback circuit for a 19" tv. I have never seen my arm fly out of an enclosure so fast when I brushed the wrong wire, nor have I ever burned up a multimeter so fast!

[@goranjosic]

Ben, it's amazing how well you explain things!! Every video I've watched, I've remembered something useful - which I can't say for all the creators I follow.

[@decnacyt4690]

I love how you go gradually increasing the complexity but without missing any explanation in detail. Thank you

[@stumblestorms7881]

Thank you, I have been searching for visually interactive, vocal, and tactile description, explanation for these concepts. I am new to this and have been getting extremely frustrated, my learning disability can really get me down. I have a feeling I am going to be putting you videos on repeat because you make it easier to understand. Thank you so much.

[@Ghost572]

The way this is described is so good. It's always interesting revising a topic and seeing another persons take on it. I really liked the description on voltage having the potential to move a lot of energy but in this case doesn't because there isn't much to move. For a while I've been wondering how to describe that when it comes to situations where you can have high voltages but really they are a bit knock off because they can't actually do anything.

[@tinsticker9884]

im an apprentice as an electrician and the education is very good. still you made me understand so much things i couldnt figure out so far. great videos

[@KingDuken]

Once you started switching your mechanical switch before using the 555, I immediately knew where this was going lol. You're making a really interesting boost converter. Of course with a higher voltage means lower current in this circuit due to conservation of energy.

[@realryder2626]

It would of only taken minutes to add. You can't learn how to increase voltage without understanding you are halving amps.. misleading lesson, gives the impression of free energy.

[@KJFMZ]

Watched a few explanations of voltage multipliers but could never grok it until this one, now I fully understand it. Thanks man!

[@DC-go5mc]

I did this exact same development and thinking on a lab bench while a sophomore in college in 1978! Thanks so much for the memories. PS, I used a 2N2222 NPN. Didn't know about MOSFETs.

[@manitoba-op4jx]

2n series transistors are still great.

[@johncoops6897]

Mosfets were not in common use in 1978, and in those days were often considered inferior to BJT due to high cost and slow operation.

[@DC-go5mc]

The design of the charge pump was to use it for RS232 communication to talk to a teletype. The overall three year project in college was to build and program a breadboard 8080A to read 1 of 16 toggle switches and output the Hex equivalent on four of the new red DC light bulbs (LED's)! I used DRAM and programmed a 1702 EPROM one byte at a time with hand assembled binary from the OP codes. Finally got it working before I graduated but only after switching to the Z80 which had Ras and Cas refresh lines for the DRAM. Very primitive by today's standards, but I learned so much, because back then even the Professors didn't know how to do it. We had to figure it out together.

[@n2n8sda]

@@DC-go5mc Ah that sounds like such an interesting project to have worked on.

[@davelowets]

@@johncoops6897 They made pretty good sounding amplifiers a few years later though... Those Hitachi TO-3's were magical sounding.

[@eahemming]

I've learned more from your content than just about anything else, in my opinion, you're the best computer electronics educator out there. Would you consider videos on oscillators, like frequency multipliers and dividers? Maybe it could be like "Making the worlds worst sound card".

[@Stewi1014]

Just this evening I've been experimenting with possibly using a charge pump as a supply for high-side N-channel MOSFETs. Awesome video!

[@noimagination99]

Excellent explanation and demonstrations! Building from the simplest example, easy to understand, to the fast automatic circuit, excellent teaching!

[@afortifiedcity]

"There's not very much energy to move, so I can't really feel anything" sounds like we need to try again with larger capacitors 😁

[@coastersaga]

@@MLU8811 How come in the thumbnail, I saw an arc of >100V?

[@miltonb4522]

@@coastersagait got you to watch the video didn’t it?

[@miltonb4522]

@@coastersagait got you to watch the video didn’t it?

[@alexandermcclure6185]

@@coastersagait got you to watch the video didn't it?

[@ZoonCrypticon]

Fantastic explications you offer us here, I wished I´d have had teachers like you in my younger years ! Thanks a lot!

[@darth_dan8886]

I've seen these multipliers so many times, but only now do I understand their function! Thank you very much!

[@mikefr24]

Really neat. Ben you are a fantastic teacher. I am not even an electronics professional but I have no problems learning and understanding what you teach. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@jyherapher1214]

Ben you are a wonderful inspiration to us all. I am building your cpu in Minecraft and IRL. Amazing content, keep it up!

[@julian7312]

Hey! I'm about to graduate in Electronics Engineering, and i have to say i'm always blown away from the manner that you manage to lay down an idea on paper and then go straight to the breadboard, from a simple circuit and then improving on it step by step, this is what EE should be all about. Whatched the whole thing at once, keep it up man !

[@ProctorSilex]

Indeed, I wish he had been my teacher back in college.

[@paulvild]

I found that presentation clear and concise. I was able to follow along and even could imagine using this knowledge to create my own circuit. That is a very rare experience for me. Thank you for breaking it down into these steps!

[@MarekWoi]

Magnificent way to explain it! I'd love to see a video explaining proper boost converters in this sort of easy to grasp, step-by-step way.

[@stevedonkers9087]

Ben is one of the few creators I subscribe to that gets the video like before the video plays. They're always great. The only downside to this video is it's only 16 minutes long.

[@BladeScraper]

That is the best demonstration/explanation of a charge pump I have ever seen. I've known of their existence for a long time and had a rough idea of what the caps do, but your demonstration explained it fully. Bravo, and thank you!

[@vaibhavkapadia1]

the way you teach concepts and convert them in real time circuit simultaneously is awesome

[@realdragon]

Your videos are amazing, you explain things in easy to understand terms. Take the problem and then tell the solution step by step how each component works and how it evolves into final form

[@part1cle137]

ben's videos are amazingly dual purpose, they can always put me to sleep but i always rewatch the video next day because they're so interesting

[@rdubb77]

His voice hits the soothing frequency

[@ryanforelli666]

Love the video as always. I would like to suggest videos involving FPGAs, I think there's a wide array of really cool projects you could!

[@jrfoliveira]

Really appreciate the way you explain practically simple this voltage multipliers circuit, excellent explanation

[@garymucher4082]

Great display of simple voltage doupler to whatever voltage you want. Yes, the current isn't there, but the voltage certainly is and that same circuit is/was used in a lot of circuits for higher voltages... Thumbs Up!

[@Circuit42]

Love your content and how informative are you

[@joedfazio]

Thanks for bringing back memories of 555 timers and diode switching circuits :) I designed circuits when scopes displayed waveforms using cathode ray tubes, yikes!

[@noyb7920]

When I was learning this stuff, the o-scopes had polaroid instant cameras to record waveforms with.

[@BlaqRaq]

Being an old-ex-electronics student, I really enjoy your channel. Keep up the good work. I can only relive these lab activities through these videos.

[@adrianhaw4635]

A very good explanation, of a charge pump circuit, starting from a very basic idea. Thank you.

[@jofathan]

I sincerely wish you could have been my EE professor. You have an incredible ability to distill important concepts into succinct explanations and labs; truly magnificent work.

[@truthsmiles]

If he had been your EE professor, he probably wouldn’t have time for KZbin. But this way, he’s _everyone’s_ EE professor :)

[@jkobain]

Yeah! More from Ben!!

[@goofyrulez7914]

Thank you. I've always been confused about this circuit but your explanation makes sense.

[@ET_AYY_LMAO]

I really like your videos, the way you start out with very simple schematics and build upon that is a good insight into the process of electronics engineering.

[@Keex11]

Very nice video. The MAX232 transceiver uses charge pumps to generate the RS232 levels. You just add the external caps. Now I know how they work. Maybe you could illustrate how to get the negative level in this way?

[@bene5431]

Just swap the positive and negative supply voltage and turn the diodes around

[@alexc4924]

I don't think you can just flip the circuit upside down because you'd need to have a negative voltage to begin with. You can use the exact same switching idea to make a voltage lower than 0, I'm just not sure if the same clever trick still applies

[@bene5431]

@@alexc4924 Just pretend that the positive terminal of the battery is ground and you have a negative voltage

[@JouMxyzptlk]

Look at the last seconds of his video where he shows the in-between voltages. Define one of those in-between as "ground" for your second circuit and you will have negative voltage to the left, and positive voltage to the right. Check with a multi-meter, should confirm!

[@josephchamness9915]

@@JouMxyzptlk but that would limit the power you can use for all rails?

[@JaenEngineering]

IIRC this can, with a little reconfiguration, be used to create a negative voltage rail for use with devices (like op-amps) that require a dual power supply

[@CutoutClips]

Yes, I've built a circuit like that before

[@glitchy_weasel]

What an amazing video. One of your best, in my opinion. Super excited to see what you'd do next with the serial interface.

[@sparkfishes]

Excellent demonstration/explanation.......love the oscilloscope

[@gsuberland]

The two complementary clock signals can also be easily generated from a microcontroller's GPIO pins if, like you suggested at the end, you want to generate a higher voltage rail for a particular interface like RS232 or RS485. Driving the GPIOs straight into the capacitor is probably not a great idea, since the maximum source/sink currents on the MCU would probably be exceeded if you did that, but the MOSFET arrangement shown earlier in the video would work perfectly, with one MOSFET attached to each pin. The total maximum supply current is quite low in this design due to the resistors, and lowering the resistances significantly decreases efficiency, so if you need more drive current, you can use a MOSFET push-pull buffer on each of the two clock phases. Designing these push-pull MOSFET circuits to avoid shoot-through (where both MOSFETs turn on at once and short from +V to GND) can be a bit tricky if you try to do it from scratch, but there are really cheap MOSFET driver ICs designed to do exactly this (often called "high-side/low-side drivers"). For bonus points, you can set up your MCU to output PWM at 50% duty cycle on a single pin (this uses 0% CPU because the PWM is generated by a hardware peripheral), then hook up a MOSFET as shown in this video to invert the output, and use the non-inverted and inverted signals to drive the two separate MOSFET push-pull circuits from a single GPIO pin.

[@drivers99]

I love staying up late working on a Ben Eater project (8 bit computer; just added the bus and added 4 out of the 7 modules to it) and then there’s a new video out this morning just making my day even better :) Now I want to look up how to do 9V to 5V so I can power the computer with 9V. Oh wait, would a simple voltage divider work or would that waste energy in the resistor? Guess I’ll go find out!

[@murasaki848]

I'm actually curious if you got it to work with a simple voltage divider. My back of the envelope calculations were questionable as to whether it would work (and especially work with a narrow enough voltage swing and simultaneously without letting the magic smoke out of the R1 resistor on the divider), especially since I can only guess at your overall maximum current draw (which will vary wildly depending on the operations your computer is doing). In any case, if the voltage divider doesn't pan out, try getting a 7805 regulator (a very popular device since before I started haunting Radio Shacks in the late 1970s) and a heat sink. The 7805 is still just a linear power supply, so you'll still be dropping 4/9 of your power into that heat sink powering it with a 9V battery, but it might work well enough. Edit: If you've never heard of them before, the 7805 is based on the LM340 adding components for a fixed output. They also have internal protections against thermal and overcurrent. The "8" in the part number is the positive series, and the "05" means 5 volts. They make others, most notably the 7812 (+12V) and the 7905 (-5V, the "9" indicating negative going), two others near and dear to me. 😊

[@davelowets]

That would be a very wasteful, low current, HOT, circuit... 🔥 As mentioned, a simple LDO regulator circuit would be the next step up, that would work ok. 1 I.C., and 2 capacitors is all that would be required.

[@drivers99]

defining acronyms LDO: Low-dropout regulator

[@Guilty-xu6gs]

Absolutely awesome ... you are a great teacher .. I can't say enough or give you a lot of praise. The way you explain what's going on step by step and the purpose of each component, ect . You do it all in record time and you don't put me to sleep ... good job !!!

[@LostInLeiden]

absolutely best video on this topic available online, thanks so much, you've made it so clear

[@azcharlie2009]

I never got to be a EE, but I've always loved electronics. Did the build a color TV thing through DeVry, and I'm a ham radio operator. Built circuits to run stepper motors for my telescope, etc..... I really enjoyed this video. I kept waiting... When were you going to introduce the diode? One thing I learned early on too was, it's not the voltage that kills you. It's the amperage! This is a great illustration! Thank you!

[@KevinSamuelsKid]

Become an electrician

[@azcharlie2009]

@@KevinSamuelsKid Instead, I decided to be a democrat politician. Made millions that way.

[@KevinSamuelsKid]

@@azcharlie2009 hahaha awesome

[@TristanCunhasprofile]

To test 9v I always licked them, do you think I'd be able to tell the difference between 9v and 18v after the charge pump?

[@Anatrok]

yes, what does 18v TASTE like?

[@zachbrown7272]

as someone who has licked 18, the answer is very very much yes. it goes from tingle to pain.

[@Chemitronic]

Beautifully clear and illustrative. Thank you for this video!

[@patrickbritt-brousseau2813]

A brilliant way of demonstrating how caps work!

[@samplesandtests]

maybe in a future video show the current at the battery and the current at the end of the multi stage charge pump (going into some load)

[@meeDamian]

How would available current/Amps change between steps? Also, I'd really love a schematic for this; I know the extra parts might be obvious to many, but for me they're just a mystery 🙈.

[@alexc4924]

Each switching node, and the original input, effectively uses up the same amount of current that you get from the output. If you have 5 stages (plus the input) and want 5mA out then you need 5mA into each stage, a total of 30mA. Of course it only flows half the time so it's 10mA when it is flowing.

[@chichongc]

I know why I like Ben's video. Ben does an excellent job of demonstrating the fundamental finding step-by-step. Ben is a very good teacher!

[@pascalbruyere7108]

I wish electronics had been explained to me like this when I was an engineering student some 30 years ago. This is Cristal clear. Thanks.

[@andrejwalilko634]

its a good thing that blue multimeter is rated for 1.21 giggawats

[@donprefontaine3237]

Wonderful! Are you going to do a 6502 UART video next?

[@AppliedCryogenics]

Are you?

[@ColinTimmins]

Wow that switch, cap, and scope demonstration was fantastic!

[@minerran]

Every electrical engineering student should watch this video, its brilliantly explained! And you even used the good old 555! Awesome!

[@SonOfSofaman]

"If you hypothetically wanted to do that for some reason" ... hmmmm

[@HighestRank]

Watch time code on video??

[@foxfire7604]

I'm a retired electronic engineer. I enjoy your videos. You have a great way of explaining things about electronics. Great job.

[@brianmyers13]

So glad I found your channel. I've never taken a course in electricity so never understood what was going on. Now I do! Thank you!

[@silkysmoof5697]

Best tutorial I have seen on a charge pump. Thank you

[@dianbasit9624]

Excellent and intuitive explanation of basic elctronics components! Keep up the awesome work!

[@benbazor3656]

Very nice explanation. I worked on Ion Implanters a few years ago. The particular ones that I worked on had a 200KVDC accelerator power supply. They used a multiplier stack similar to your demonstration, but much larger. All the connection points had corona balls to prevent arcing. Anyway, your explanation is the best and simplest that I have ever seen. Good job.

[@DavidRTribble]

Simple explanations for complex electronics. Start simple, and then build and build, until you have a complex system. Wonderful elucidation.

[@Kevin192291]

Your videos are always so clear and well put, Thank you!

[@WestIsland6505]

I really appreciate to be told why a component is needed and what it actually does. It's kind of like the teacher wanted to see how you came up with the answer on a math test. I like your method since I am a beginner at the age of 68.