The highest performers among all inductors are the toroidal shaped inductors and transformers. Power toroidal inductors and transformers cores are available in many different materials: tape-wound silicon steel, nickel, MPP, powdered iron, and ferrite. They also come in various sizes, ranging from very small .125” OD to very large 6” OD. This flexibility in materials and sizes allows for many design possibilities for an inductor.

A power toroidal inductor and transformer can be used in any inductor application that can occupy its size and shape. For some applications this is not always practical, often times mounting a toroidal inductor and transformer flat on a circuit board may occupy too much board area. Other times mounting the Power toroidal inductor and transformer vertically causes problems with system keep out zones. In some applications a gapped core is called out. In these situations if a distributed gapped material like powdered iron won’t give the desired results, other geometries are better suited for this case because gapping a toroid is often more expensive and time consuming. Although, the toroid has a few shortcomings, in most instances it is the most efficient transformer core available and with the various types of materials and sizes can be used in many applications.