oh, I never said I've never blown up a component... quite the opposite, I've smoked my share... they don't call me 'Sparky' for no reason. I had one ic looked like a volcano on top, and so much of the plastic had vaporized you could plainly see the die (no pun intended)... I've left my fingerprints in a few others testing to see if they were getting hot (they were)... I said I never blew up a micro due to poor layout... and never had to buy a $10 module to keep a 25 cent part from blowing up a circuit... a 25 cent part that has so much built in protection I used one one time to keep users from plugging 12V into our 5v output and blowing up our board... I remember when the 7805s first came out... they were a godsend.. they reduced a large power supply/protection circuit down to the size of a single transistor (TO220), now people take them for granted...
and why buy a $10 switcher module when you can build one for less than $2... I have a design that will give a rock solid 5V output with a 3v to 24V input... my old boss designed it... it's a buck/boost design that he came up with before they sold buck/boost converters... I've used it in designs to output 5V, 8V, 12V, and 15V (with a few mods, mostly change the feedback resistors). I don't even know it's rating (I guess I could figure it out if I had the fancy), but I've never overpowered it, and it surely never blew up any of the micros I was using it to power up.... (there he goes saying never again)...