The laser diode industry has seen the output powers of laser diodes increase from milliwatts up to tens of watts and beyond. This increase comes with a similar increase in the drive current required to produce such output. As an example, five watts of fiber-coupled, pump laser light may require six to eight amps of drive current. Generally, a laser diode lab will have several different current sources of varying output levels but most will not have sources capable of driving these higher-power lasers. The quickest and most cost-effective way to run these lasers is by connecting two or more laser diode current sources in parallel to produce the necessary drive current. Depending on the operational mode, different connections between the laser and current source may be needed.