Do different diodes need different drivers?!

Half of this is just a story that made me get into this lasery stuff


Hello, I got into lasers ages ago when I was really small like 8 and I bought these
20mW lasers off ebay and I had alot of fun and just recently I got into lasers again and I found that old laser I used too play with and started playing around with it then I thought there's for sure some powerful ones so I looked around on the internet and I found this website selling these arctic laser things so I thought okay I will buy one of those so then before spending likw $600 on a laser i looked around on the internet a bit more and I found out that you can make your own lasers out of basically scratch so then I looked around a bit more
and I saw you need these drivers so

Question: I was wondering if I need a different driver for each different type of diode....

Yes you need different drivers for each diode. All the different diodes have different forward voltages. For example a red diode is like 2.5 volts and a 445nm is like 5.5 volts.
The forward voltage and the voltage of your batteries dictates whether you will buy a buck or boost driver.
If battery voltage < diode voltage you need a boost driver.
If battery voltage > diode voltage you need a buck driver
Welcome to the forum!

wth?? is this your welcome intro?? wrong section
PM coming

Ummmm.... No not really. You just need to be aware of the VF of your diode

Blue/Purple ~ 5.5v
Red ~ 2.5v
Green ~ 7v
IR ~ 2v

Never use a boost driver for Reds or IR

Try to avoid using a buck for a green diode

Other than that it doesn't matter what you use as long as the battery config is right

(buck - 2 li-ion cells in SERIES)
(boost - 1 li-ion or more in PARALLEL)

Basically driver choice is dictated by battery configuration and not the diode.

Hope this helps
-Matt