Small 24VDC to 24VDC ~5-10W Isolated DC to DC Converter ~90khz (TL494 - UCC27524 - 74HC14)

As expected this decent sized 1:1:1 GDT "works" but the circuit needs a good ferrite low leakage transformer for the best performance. Right now it starts to sag too low below 24V when loaded at 8-10W but is acceptable at 5W. It'll be good for more than 10W when I put the right small ferrite transformer in it. I'm hoping to hit about 85-90%. I don't want to just wind one though, and would rather source something I can finalize a circuit with to make more of. After that I will spend time on the output stage trying to filter it as best as I can to reduce the ripple. IRF540's are not exactly modern switches but meh. To really push efficiency one would need low gate charge and output capacitance fets (sic/gan), of course a very clean board, and the good transformer. 90% then becomes a reasonable baseline whereas even 85% may be difficult using these parts.

TL494 Push-Pull common emitter, collectors pulled to 5v
74HC14 to invert signals
UCC27524 push-pull fed
IRF540's
~90khz ( I could drop this for better performance but..)

The TL494 is not exactly cutting edge technology either but it's a handy chip and it's always good to be able to set some dead time to avoid shoot through. Otherwise I suppose you could use any oscillator that will give you a 50% duty cycle and then try to RC delay the Schmitt trigger to attempt dead time. (I should add that you may not want to run a high duty cycle with a super tiny transformer unless you plan to run lower voltage into the primary). I'm kind of just using a bunch of these thruhole IC's I had for a while but man, all SMD would make everything about it pretty tiny.