Every switching regulator that I have worked with seems to have so many small components. I'm always having to tinker with something. Recommendations for one that is less ... involved?

 

switching regulator

That covers many types of power supplies. Are you looking at power line to 12 volts? or DC-DC like 12V to 5V? or solar? How much power?

If you are just wanting to learn switchers, we should start out with a simple DC-DC that is save.

 

Switching regulators are used for high power and Vout/Vin ratios, which is great, but they sure are noisy.

A linear regulator may be inefficient but they have almost all silence. I would think a linear would both be cheaper and linear.

 

Creating a switching regulator with a logic gate (and then an op amp controlling it). It worked out quite well.

 

I must say, the more integrated the solution the more higher in cost it will be. Also, the potential for individual components to go bad or malfunction is much higher.

 

All that said, I do love using integrated DC-DC components. I mean, no one has enough time to rigorously combine those other components all the time.