Driver help?

[jcswimmer305]

I'm looking for a good driver to support a 200mW 445nm laser diode and i'm on this website, O-like, and I see drivers...but they say they are specific for certain wavelengths..

Is there something I'm missing here? I thought the only thing that was dependent on the light was the diode..

 

[Eudaimonium]

Well, normally the driver has nothing to do with the color of light, however, there are diodes, like say, 445nm diodes, which are made in only one option, and all work on 1 - 1.5 Amps, no other diode goes that high in current. 12x blurays usually take 400-500mA, but at higher voltage then reds at same current.

So basically, when you say "Bluray driver" it usually means it's a boost driver intended to provide the current and voltage required by typical bluray diodes. It can ofcourse be used to power other diodes, but it's ideally used with blurays.

Same with blue, usually "boost drivers" and providing >1A of current are used to power 445nm diodes, since no other diodes work under those parameters.

 

[jcswimmer305]

+rep, Thanks!

Does this only apply to blue diodes? What about green or red? Those, would obviously take less Amps to work probably, but is there a difference between power that they work with?

Also...if a buy a test load and reset the driver to reach about 500-1000mA (I don't know what it was originally), then would that be good enough for the 445?

Plus, what would happen if I had set the driver for the 445 (assume it takes 1.5A) to about 200 or 300mA? Would it still work? Just not using all of it's potential?