Bike Light People – has Taskled gone belly up?!

I originally wanted to do an LED conversion with the blackcattech LED driver, but he’s not doing these anymore.
So I changed my housing design to accommodate the Taskled B2flex driver, but when it came to ordering them, they weren’t available. I e-mailed taskled and was told that they are working on a B3flex driver with a max 3A output, which would be ready around Feb.

Last week I looked and the site said they were expecting stock mid-March, but for the last couple of days I haven’t been able to get onto their site at all.

Anyone know what’s going on? Have they gone bust or something?
I e-mailed their sales address to say ‘are you aware you site is down?’, but haven’t had a reply, whereas last time I mailed them about availability I got a really detailed response in about 15 mins.

Never gonna get this conversion done….

I tried to get through to them a few days ago and just got 404.

I think it is just an internet issue and assume that has taken his emails out also.

I doubt he has stopped trading as he (used to have) a 9-5 job also.
He also had significant stock which I am sure he would have sold off.

I was also looking for some more info on the b3flex

N

George (Mr Taskled) posted on MTBR forums yesterday – might be an idea to PM via there.
Link to his MTBR

stumpy I have plenty of b2flexs in stock if you want some

Doh1Nut – the bflex will be the same form factor as the B2flex, but with a configurable max output of 3A. I think he is enlarging the heatsink pad on the back of the device. From the e-mail I received from him, I think he said it’s more like a scaled down H6flex, as the B2flex wasn’t scalable any higher….

snaps – thanks for that. I did have a quick look on mtbr, but couldn’t see anything….

trout – why didn’t you tell me sooner!?! 😉
I’d definitely be interested in 4x B2flexes. E-mail should be in profile, if you could send me price details and how much you want for postage etc…

Awesome! Thanks people. This place is great!!

Email sent Stumpy
£20 each and a quid for pp

and http://www.taskled.com back up now

Cheers Trout – payment sent…..

I’ve not actually stopped doing the existing drivers, however as I’m not selling many I may well not get another batch made once what I have runs out.

Trouble is, I’ve got a fair few left and am selling about one a month at the moment so there isn’t much incentive I’m afraid…

Hi bct…I kept checking eBay & never found any of your drivers on there.

Sorry for any confusion. Are they on eBay as active listings?

They were ideal for the Lumi halogen cans due to their small size. It’s strange that demand has dropped off as there often seems to be people wanting to convert lights…

Have you made people aware of your drivers on candlepower forums?

I think it may also be the stupid cheap Chinese lights swamping the world making conversions seem expensive

Yeah Trout, I think you are right. Until not very long ago, a decent led light for riding with was £150+.

Now those dealextreme lights are so bright for so little money that tinkering in a shed to make your own is perhaps not cost effective. Especially if you need to get some housing made in low quantities.

£3 for a switch
£25 for a 3x led board
£7 for a bct board or >£20 for a bflex

already costing about the same as a dealextreme light and that’s assuming you have soldering iron, solder, heatshrink, thermal paste.

Then you have to find something to put it all in…

Stumpy – Odd, they are on there at the moment. The only times they haven’t been are for a few weeks earlier in the year when I had to stop my ebay listings temporarily as I needed a minor operation and wasn’t able to post items.

I’ve only got the 830 and 980mA ones listed as I’m out of PCBs for the lower current ones. The lower current ones were selling very slowly though, it was mainly the higher current ones that sold but I don’t think I’m even in to double figures for the year so far.

I do think Troutie is right though, now the Chinese have caught up the home-grown market can’t compete as the UK consumer only thinks about price.

bct, that’ll be when I was looking then, as there was virtually nothing in your eBay shop. I think I checked for couple of weeks and then didn’t bother looking after that. Kinda got it in my head that I was going to have to use taskled instead.

I emailed you towards the start of the year and you said you weren’t too sure if you were going to do anymore because of low demand. I think I assumed you must have made a decision to jack it in.

Bit of a shame that, as I ended up re-designing the housing I’d come up with to accommodate the taskled driver (it was originally drawn up around your driver) and I’ve just spanked £80 on some taskleds via trout…

Hmmm. Wonder if I should order some of yours for back-up/future plans…

I’m unlikely to run out of PCBs anytime soon and at the current rate of sales I think I’ll have built up drivers for a good long while as well! I’m going to keep them listed until I need to make a significant investment in PCBs or parts but unless that is soon (i.e. sales pick up) I won’t be making more.

I think the main problem is that the DIY market is heading towards higher current LEDs and this design doesn’t scale well beyond 1A.

I’m afraid there is much more margin to be made in my model railway products so at the moment my efforts are going in that direction…