I'm just starting to think about using a simple AC half wave voltage doubler (as described here
formatting link
but adding regulation by replacing the diodes with SCRs and controlling the voltage across the caps by either phase control or zero volt switching. Inrush current would be controlled by a soft start circuit to ramp the voltage up after switch on.
Has anyone played around with this? Although it looks easy enough to implement the regulation with discretes; there must be a suitable cheap phase control IC out there but I can't find any, can anyone point me at one?
Dave