I got a set of tiger lights at the beginning of winter, they had just had a great review so almost sold out so I had to buy a large battery with them. The lights are fantastic, great quality and I'm dead happy however, I've been trying to either buy a small(normal) battery or some of the connectors to make my own and I'm drawing a blank each time.. emailed them a few times and received short blunt replies, the most recent said they doubted if I can "ever" buy a battery or connectors for them... have they stopped building them ? anyone else managed to buy something from them recently ?
Bike Forum
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Tiger lights... whats gone wrong ?
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Posted 2 years ago #
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I think it may be refering to the types of connectors they are using. Never seen one but would hazard a guess they are a custom type spec to tie you down to their specific batteries/lights. May be wrong though?
Posted 2 years ago # -
I can maybe shed a little light (pardon the pun)
on the matter. I also have the Tiger and find it superbe. However, we do really mental stuff up here and so wanted to run it on the helmet and a Trout LL on the bar. I e-mailed Reuben to ask if i could have a female connector to run a Tiger battery to the Trout LL. He said no and would not tell where the are from as i thought that is like giving away a secret of your own business. In the end i had Smudge change the connector to a lumi on both a second battery and a charger. Finding out that the Black wire is +pos.... and there are 3 wires/pins, only 2 are used.Basically they are designed to run together and should be left as so.
Hope this helps
Cheers Smudge BTW, all is good in the land of awesome (pushing at least 2500 lumen) lights
Posted 2 years ago # -
thanks Stoney, helps a little, considered changing all the connectors... piskes me off that I now can't buy either bits....strange company.
Posted 2 years ago # -
you actually used em yet si?
Posted 2 years ago # -
Reuben Is a one man band with other income streams. Last time I saw him he had decided to more away from the bike lights. He didn't do much marketing anyway and has since decided he can't compete with the big boys. Last I heard he was focussing on very high performance caving lights with better profit margins than the ultra competitive bike light market.
I'd guess he's not that interested anymore.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Thats a bit lame really, not much of a business model that!! I'm sure the caving community wouldn't react well to hearing about that level of customer service.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Not saying its right, just what it sounds like.
I've got a tiger light too and asked him directly what that meant for spares availability since I was fairly concenred on hearing what he said - apparently he has quite a bit of stuff, although those connectors are in very short supply.
AFAIR when I met him to look at some tiger lights originally, he had to get the silicone on/off button custom made, and the search for those connectors was long and difficult. Perhaps its a supply problem?
Anyway, he posts on here somtimes, as do quite a few of his riding buddies. I expect he or one of them may want to comment when they find this thread.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Reuben's actually away this week but I'll give him a heads up when he gets back.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Real shame if they have gone that way as the lights are fantastic.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Reuben here (owner/developer of Tiger Lights).
Tiger Lights have been selling for a couple of years now – they started as a ‘guilty pleasure’ – I personally wanted some really good lights with a great fuel gauge and so I developed a set. I’m a product designer and Custom Idea Ltd sell other products (which are profitable) so we were happy to make a few more Tigers for my club members etc…
Things grew and grew as they inevitably do with a good product and when the won the MBUK review we hit a peak. But it has to be realised that volume-wise we were always making these lights in ‘prototype’ not ‘production’ quantities, so our cost is waaay higher than the fully tooled up competition companies who have spent years obtaining market share through big advertising budgets etc.. Therefore, to remain at all price-competitive the margin on these lights was always going to be very small. We could have gone hell for leather with advertising and investment to capture a much larger market share, but it would not have been a sensible move in such a competitive market. So, as sales drop off to nothing because the spring/summer season is drawing in, we pretty much decided to sell the final Tiger stock and call it a day. We will, of course, continue to support all the tiger lights out there, and I do actually have a stock of parts for this very purpose. However, we won’t continue to sell the lights or batteries as new products because it’s just not financially viable. The exception to this would be if enough people wanted a set, then we would consider doing a ‘run’.
We are looking to see if there is a company out there who are interested in taking on the Tigers, in order to move them to full production, where it would be a viable business as long as there was investment for advertising and marketing. If anyone is interested drop me an email!
Also there was mention of our caving lights – rest assured these were a ‘business decision’ and have been priced to be financially viable, so it’s a different kettle of fish entirely!
By the way, I believe we do have a few lamp units left if anyone is interested in converting their single lamp system to a dual lamp system.
All the best, and we hope the Tigers continue to shine bright out there!
Squishy/Reuben
Posted 2 years ago # -
Thanks for the Public reply Reuben, However, you state above "We will, of course, continue to support all the tiger lights out there, and I do actually have a stock of parts for this very purpose"
Can I buy a couple of connectors please ?(as per my emails) So I can run a "standard" set of batteries that I will put together myself. When I purchased demand was so high you "only" had the large battery set. I thought, ok, I'll buy it with large battery and then buy a small battery later when there back in stock. Nothing led me to believe that you would cease to sell anything for the tiger lights.....
OK, the supports still there, but I can't help but feeling a little bit had.OR, if your not selling MTB lights anymore, can you not give your source for the connectors ?
Posted 2 years ago #
Topic Closed
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