last few days:

buck switching supply works, but needs high startup voltage.

going to insert a boost converter, or increasing ac multiply stages.

tried ac multiplier stages, but didn't work well at 4x, w/ 33uF capacitors. Those should actually be pretty ideal for working at this frequency range, but perhaps the current capacity was dramatically reduced? It seemed to be larger with larger output caps, but I need to look at this again tomorrow :)