Good day to all. I've mentioned sometime last year that I had submitted my low cost=20 dc-dc converter design to the magazine Electronic Design. It was=20 published early this year. I got a call from the publisher a couple of months ago asking for=20 more details and was told that my design had made the short list for=20 Electronic Design's Best-Of-Year issue. The person who was doing the interview mentioned that the issue=20 containing the Best-Of columns would be published either late this=20 year or in early 2011. I didn't give it much thought until I started getting several email=20 requests about the circuit over the past couple of days. Being the=20 curious sort, I went looking for the issue. I found the article in=20 the December 9, 2010 issue. The actual Best-Of article is here:=20 <http://electronicdesign.com/ar= ticle/news/Electronic-Design-Announces-2010-Best-Electronic-Design-Award-Wi= nners/3.aspx =20 > It turns out that Electronic Design has given my design their 'Best=20 IFD' designation! I'm pleased as punch and thought that I'd share . Here's a recap of the circuit: 8-32 Vdc input, 5Vdc @ 50 mA output. Efficiency not measured but=20 probably around 80% when loaded. Much worse when un-loaded because=20 unused current is dissipated in a zener diode. This was absolutely=20 NOT a concern for me because the load was essentially constant. Very low cost. I'm using this in a couple of products and our=20 component cost is about $0.60 including the common-mode choke that=20 I'm using as a transformer. We purchased several thousand pieces of=20 that choke for about US $0.25 each several years ago. Really strange oscillator circuit based on one section of a dual or=20 quad comparitor. I've used both LM393 and LM339 comparitors and they=20 work really well. Oscillator relies on the open-collector output of=20 the comparitor. Its published in Electronic Design's Ideas For Design column as=20 linked here:=20 <http://electronicdesign.com/article= /ideas-for-design/build_your_own_ultra_low_cost_isolated_dc_dc_converter.as= px> dwayne --=20 Dwayne Reid Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd Edmonton, AB, CANADA (780) 489-3199 voice (780) 487-6397 fax www.trinity-electronics.com Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .