Warm greetings to all! First build tips?

Hello everyone,

Jester here, stumbled across this and can't explain the excitement I have to make my first laser or two.

Pretty confident I shouldn't have any issues putting it together as I'm currently grinding away towards my EE degree, while working full time as a reliability engineer(fancy title for lead RMA tech) for a revolutionary hoverboard company based out of the bay area.

Now that I've got myself introduced, I'm seeking a little helpful advice. I leave town backpacking on Wednesday am going to try my damn best to have at least one bad ass laser built to take.

I plan to order the diodes and drivers from DTR as soon as I can figure out what I actually want, likely "Nichia NUGM01 1W 520nm" one and/or "Nichia 6W+ NUBM44 450nm"
How do all the Nichia diodes in the 445nm-520nm range differ?
How do they compare to M140s?
What diodes would you recommend?

I'm going to be conversing with ElectricPlasma about seeing what hosts he has on hand, otherwise I'll be going with survival lasers I suppose, but again I'm welcoming suggestions. Remember I'm trying to source these parts as fast as possible.