Perhaps the simplest way to regulate a DC voltage is using a voltage divider and/or an active device like a Zener diode. Besides simplicity, they have the additional advantage of not being particularly noisy, but with a major caveat: they are terribly inefficient. To solve this problem a switching regulator can be used instead, but that generally increases complexity and noise. With careful design, though, a switching regulator can be constructed to almost completely replicate a linear regulator like this drop-in TO3 replacement. (Google Translate from German)
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/03/31/drop-in-switch-mode-regulators/