• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Grow Light Info

Helping You Choose the Right Grow Light

  • Grow Light Reviews
    • Blurple LEDs
      • Advanced Platinum Series Review
      • BestVA DC Series Review
      • Higrow LED Review
      • King Plus 1000 Review
      • Viparspectra PAR Series Review
      • Viparspectra Reflector 600 Review
    • COB LEDs
      • Aglex COB LED Review
      • CREE CXB3590 COB Review
      • Phlizon COB Series Review
    • Quantum LEDs
      • HLG Quantum Board Review
      • Kingbrite Review
      • Mars TS & SP Series Review
      • Maxsisun PB Series Review
      • Meijiu Review
      • Spider Farmer SF Review
    • Fluorescent Lights
      • Hydrofarm AgroBrite T5 Review
  • Buying Guides
    • HID Guides
      • Best CHM Grow Lights
      • Best HID Grow Light Kits
      • Best HPS Brands
      • Best MH and HPS Bulbs
    • LED Guides
      • Best LED Grow Lights
      • Best COB LED Grow Lights
      • Best Full Spectrum LEDs
      • Best 2000w LED Lights
      • Best Dimmable LEDs
      • Best T5 LED Lights
      • Best LEDs For Flowering
      • Best 300w LED Lights
      • Best LEDs Under $100
      • Best UFO LEDs
      • Best Blue LEDs
      • Best LED Grow Light Strips
    • Other Guides
      • Best Large Grow Tents
      • Best Small Grow Tents
      • Best Fan For Grow Tents
      • Best Grow Light Stands
      • Best Small Grow Lights
      • Best T5 Bulbs For Veg
      • Best Trichome Microscope
      • Best Digital Weed Scale
      • Best Weed Trimming Scissors
      • Best Grow Light Timer
  • Grow Light Advice
  • Cannabis Cultivation
    • Best Place To Buy Marijuana Seeds
    • Best Way To Grow Weed Indoors
    • What Do I Need To Grow Weed?
    • Growing Tips & Advice
You are here: Home / Grow Light Reviews

Maxsisun PB Series LED Grow Light Review (Great Budget Quantum Board Fixtures)

Last updated April 2, 2022 By Steven 8 Comments

Maxsisun PB1000 ReviewIt’s a good time to be a grower.

More and more companies are releasing quantum board style lights.

The Maxsisun PB series of LED grow lights is one of the more intriguing options.

HLG started the quantum board craze and their lights still sit on top of the market (review here), but they are also the most expensive.

Among the Chinese brands selling basically the same lights, Spider Farmer stands out.

Their lights are top quality, but considerably less expensive than HLG (review of Spider Farmer).

Maxsisun has dropped the price even more.

How do they do this?

By foregoing brand name parts. They do not use Samsung boards or Meanwell drivers.

What effect does that have on the lights? Are the cost saving worth it?

Let’s take a closer look at the Maxsisun PB lights and find out, beginning with a comparison of all 3 fixtures in the series. Then we’ll do an in-depth review of the Maxsisun PB2000 LED grow light.

 

Maxsisun Quantum Board LED Grow Lights: Comparison Table

Model Size Wattage Coverage Bloom PAR
PB 1000
Maxsisun PB1000Check Price
Weight:
4.8 lbs.

Dimensions:
12" x 10.8" x 2.5"

Actual:
100 watts

HID Equiv:
150 watts

2' x 2' 722 umol/m²/s
@ 12 inches
PB 1500
Maxsisun PB1500Check Price
Weight:
6.3 lbs.

Dimensions:
15.5" x 10.8" x 2.5"

Actual:
150 watts

HID Equiv:
250 watts

3' x 3' 1003 umol/m²/s
@ 12 inches
PB 2000
Maxsisun PB2000Check Price
Weight:
8.8 lbs.

Dimensions:
23.9" x 10.8" x 2.5"

Actual:
200 watts

HID Equiv:
300 watts

4' x 2' 1057 umol/m²/s
@ 12 inches
PB 4000
Maxsisun PB4000Check Price
Weight:
27.5 lbs.

Dimensions:
24" x 21.6" x 2.5"

Actual:
400 watts

HID Equiv:
600 watts

4' x 4' 1770 umol/m²/s
@ 12 inches

 

Maxsisun PB 2000 Review

This review focuses on the PB2000 Maxsisun fixture, but everything written here goes for the PB1000, PB1500 and PB4000 as well, apart from the individual specifications. The table above shows the differences in specs.

Maxsisun PB2000 quantum board LED grow light

 

Features Of The Maxsisun PB2000 LED Grow Light

  • Uses 200 watts — save about 50% on your electric bill over HID lights
  • Equivalent to a 300 watt HID system — but costs less to buy AND to operate
  • Ideal spectrum for plants — 3500K and 6500K white light, plus 660 nm red; the perfect light for all stages of growth, with peaks on red and blue and a lot of light in every other color, plus deep red
  • Highly efficient — great output from a low power usage (2.7 μmol/J)
  • 2 by 4 foot core coverage — the coverage for vegging is a bit larger at 2.5 by 4.5 feet
  • Smart Driver — the driver will dim down the brightness automatically, to keep plants from getting burned
  • Rated for 100,000+ hours — 8+ years with no bulb changes
  • 2 year warranty — and a 30 day money back guarantee; plus a 5 year warranty on the driver

 

Advantages

The strongest point of the Maxsisun PB series is that you get quantum board LED grow lights at a much lower price. These lights have many other strengths as well, but as we’ll see, they lag behind HLG or Spider Farmer lights in every aspect except price.

 

Low Price

As mentioned, the price is the one area where the Maxsisun lights beat their closest competitors. Apart from one. The Mars Hydro TS series of lights are very similar and sell for a similar price.

Which one is better?

Hard to say. If I were choosing between the two, I would first look at the coverage area. Go with whichever lights cover your grow area the best. If that does not narrow it down, look at the price. It fluctuates a lot on Amazon, so just go with whichever brand is currently selling for less.

If you don’t mind buying direct from China (on Alibaba), there are even cheaper options. The best among them are Kingbrite. Read our review of Kingbrite quantum board lights for more information.

 

Spectrum

The Maxsisun PB fixtures feature a mix of 3500K warm white, 6500K cool white and 660 nm deep red diodes. This is a great spectrum for growing plants and it is also very good for flowering. But it’s not the best.

Most of the competing lights use a mix of 3000K and 5000K diodes, which means more red spectrum light. This makes them better for bloom, while the Maxsisun lights are better for vegging. That said, the difference is not that big. All lights work well for any stage of growth.

Some of the competing lights also include IR diodes, which these lights don’t have at all. The Mars Hydro lights also have UV, which no other lights have. Whether UV and IR has much of an effect is still some matter of discussion.

IR light is said to help during flowering, by speeding up flowering time slightly and also giving a boost to yields. UV light is said to increase resin production. Because UV light is only useful during the final weeks of flowering, it makes more sense to just get a separate UV bulb (this article on UV light and its effect on plants has some suggestions).

 

Coverage And Output

The biggest advantage of the quantum board style fixtures is the coverage. Where other types of fixtures generally have light emanating outward from the central fixture, quantum boards have light going more directly downward. This is due to their size.

They have a bunch of smaller diodes spread out over a much larger surface area, so the light can reach the canopy more quickly across a larger surface area. When all the diodes are gathered together in a smaller area like with most lights, or a fixture uses fewer, more powerful diodes (like COBs), then the light has to travel further to get to the edges of the coverage area, which means it loses a lot of its intensity.

The end result of the quantum boards’ larger surface area is a more even light spread across the entire coverage area. Take a look at the PPFD footprint for the Maxsisun PB 2000 LED grow light at 12 inches and 18 inches from the plants.

PPFD Footprint Chart for Maxsisun PB2000

Most lights might give you a much higher PPFD in the middle, but it drops off considerably toward the edges. That’s great for the plant directly beneath the light, but not so great for any other plants you might have. The more even spread of the quantum board lights ensures that plants in the corners of the coverage area still get enough light to flower.

What these PPFD charts also show you is the high output you get with this light, despite it only consuming 200 watts. It has an average PPFD of 1548 umol per square foot at 18 inches and it is powerful enough to cover a 2 by 4 foot area.

 

Other Advantages

Another big advantage of the quantum style LED grow lights is their heat output, or lack thereof. Because they use so many smaller diodes, they do not run as hot as lights that use fewer, more powerful LED diodes. As a result, passive cooling is sufficient. They do not require any fans.

This means that they run silent. If you’ve ever been in a grow room full of LED grow lights with fans, you know how noisy those can get. The complete lack of noise with these lights is a wonderful change of pace.

It should be noted that they do still produce heat, however.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that LED lights do not produce any heat (probably because many of the shadier manufacturers have made such a claim), but they do. They emit less heat than the equivalent HPS light (generally around 30% less), but they are still powerful sources of light, which obviously means heat as well.

Another somewhat-advantage is that Maxsisun gives you a fairly generous 2 year warranty. I say “somewhat”, because many of the better Chinese brands now offer 3 year warranties.

The driver has a separate 5 year warranty from the driver manufacturer. In addition to the warranties, these lights also have a 30 day money-back guarantee. If you don’t like it, simply return it and get your money back.

 

Disadvantages

The most obvious disadvantage at first glance is the use of no-name components. Where the top quantum board lights use Samsung boards and Meanwell drivers, Maxsisun uses unnamed Chinese brands.

They work well, but they can’t match Samsung and Meanwell in terms of efficiency and reliability. Of course, using Chinese branded components is the reason for the much lower price.

The drivers used have one other disadvantage when compared to Meanwell drivers. They are not dimmable.

This is not a problem for everyone, but some people prefer to dim their lights during vegging, to save on power costs when full power is not needed (plants generally need about half as much power during vegging as flowering).

This is not an issue if you have separate vegging and flowering rooms. In that case, you can simply hang the light higher in the vegging room and have it cover a larger area.

Plus, while you can’t dim the driver yourself, it does have a smart dimming feature.

If it detects that the temperature is getting too high and your plants are at risk of being burned, the driver will dim down the lights automatically. I suppose this could be listed as a strength, but the fact that you can’t also dim the lights manually makes it a weakness to me.

Another potential disadvantage is one already mentioned above: the cooler light. Using 3500K and 6500K white light, instead of 3000K and 5000K, results in a cooler white light that contains more blue and less red.

This makes Maxsisun fixtures better at vegging, but not quite as good at flowering. They are still great, but not quite as great as the flowering monsters from Spider Farmer and HLG.

The lack of UV and IR may also be a problem for some. As mentioned previously, I prefer to just add supplemental UV in the form of fluorescent tubes, since you only want UV light during the final weeks of flowering anyway.

IR light is harder to supplement. If you want that, go with one of the brands that include IR diodes in their fixtures, like Spider Farmer or Mars Hydro.

When you buy one of these lights, it ships with a hanging kit and a 6 foot power cord.

I mention this here under the disadvantages, because the 6 foot cord is far too short and the hanging kit does not have ratchets, which makes raising and lowering the light a bit more time consuming. It would not be difficult for Maxisun to lengthen the cord and include ratcheting hangers and both would make a huge difference.

 

Maxsisun PB Quantum LED Grow Light Review: Final Verdict

The Maxsisun PB2000 LED Grow Light, and the PB1000, PB1500 and PB4000 fixtures, are great additions to the quantum board market.

While they have a cooler color spectrum than competing quantum board lights and they do not have any UV or IR, they still have a great spectrum for all stages of growth.

The higher proportion of blue light makes them the best quantum boards for vegging, but they still have tons of red from the white light, plus the additional 660 nm deep red diodes, that they are also great for bloom. Just not as great as some of the competition.

Their biggest strength is the price. It is far lower than Spider Farmer or HLG, but around the same as Mars Hydro. If you don’t need Samsung and Meanwell components, then Maxsisun lights are a great way to save money.

Since they are very similar to the smaller offerings from Mars Hydro, your decision will have to come down to those two brands. Which one offers lights with the coverage are you need and which one is currently selling for a lower price?

Either way, you are getting a great quantum board light for an unbelievable price. It is the low price that boosts Maxsisun’s score considerably, but the no-name components do drop it below the top competition.

Overall, we give these lights a Grow Light Info rating slightly lower than the Mars TS and SP lights (primarily because some of the Mars lights use a Meanwell driver): a 4.6 out of 5.

Check Current Prices On Amazon

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. MJ says

    November 5, 2020 at 21:50

    Your link to the PB Series Lights on Amazon shown a different set of specs. —MAXSISUN High Performance PB2000 LED Grow Lights with Samsung LEDs and Sosen Driver,—
    Upgraded with Samsung LM281B+ LEDs, PB2000 delivers a powerful light output and high penetration downwards the plant canopy with a great Photosynthetic Photon Efficacy (PPE) of 2.7 μmol/J,——–
    —- With Sosen Drivers

    Is this a mistake on Amazon or on your review?

    Reply
    • Steven says

      November 6, 2020 at 01:49

      It says upgraded on Amazon, so there’s your answer. They upgraded the light since the review. We’ll need to update the review when we get a chance.

      Reply
    • Anonymous says

      November 14, 2020 at 16:07

      what’s the life span on these

      Reply
      • Steven says

        November 15, 2020 at 00:43

        It says in the article they’re rated for 100,000 hours.

        Reply
      • Anonymous says

        November 15, 2020 at 13:01

        It says in the description and since they have a new and an old version it would be wise to READ said description.

        Reply
  2. Ash says

    December 27, 2020 at 07:43

    Okay. You stated this light is cheaper then hps. Which is entirely false. A 1000 watt ballast reflector and hortilux bulb is still half the price of these units. The one you reviews only covers 2×2 essentially. Makes me question the whole article to be honest. Also they do use Samsung diodes. Another note is the par readings blow a 1000 watt hps out of the water so I’m not sure why you are saying it’s the equivalent of a 600 watt hps? I’m not even defending this cheap Chinese light. I just see a lot of mistakes in this article.

    Reply
    • Ash says

      December 27, 2020 at 07:44

      Ops covers 2×4

      Reply
    • Jacob d schmid says

      March 30, 2021 at 05:04

      dude your a bonehead. there cheaper in the long run on your electric bill

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Cannabis Cultivation

Best Water For Weed Plants

Best Water For Weed Plants (Ideal Temperature, PPM, pH)

Growing Autoflowers Without Nutrients

Growing Autoflowers Without Nutrients (Is It Possible?)

Pruning To Increase Yield

Pruning To Increase Yield (Only If You Do It Right)

Best Humidifier For Grow Tent

Best Humidifier For Grow Tents (Reviews And Comparison)

Grow Tent Vs Grow Room

Grow Tent Vs Grow Room (Differences And Which Is Best For You)

Best Lights For Vegging Cannabis

Best Lights For Vegging Cannabis (Two Types Stand Out)

Quictent 4 by 4 grow tent

Quictent Grow Tent Review (Is The Slightly Higher Price Worth It?)

Carbon Filter Outside Grow Tent

Carbon Filter Outside Grow Tent (What You Need To Know)

Flowering Clones Back To Veg

Can You Switch Flowering Clones Back To Veg? (And How To Do It)

Secret Jardin Grow Tent Review (Great Value At All Price Points)

More Posts from this Category

Buying Guides

Best Timer For Grow Lights

Best Timer For Grow Lights (Reviews And Buying Guide)

Best Scissors For Trimming Weed

Best Scissors For Trimming Weed (Reviews And Buying Guide)

Best Digital Scale For Weed

Best Digital Scale For Weed (Reviews And Buying Guide)

Best Microscope For Checking Trichomes

Best Microscope For Checking Trichomes (Reviews And Buying Guide)

Best Fan For Grow Tents

Best Fan For Grow Tents (Reviews And Comparison)

Recent Reviews

Vivosun Grow Tent Review (Low Price, But How Is Quality?)

Bloom Plus Review (Good Budget Quantum LED Grow Lights?)

Aceple AG-6000 review

Aceple AG-6000 Review (Can It Really Substitute A Spyder Or Gavita?)

ChilLED Growcraft Review (A Viable Spyder Alternative?)

Viparspectra XS Series Review (Budget Price, Name-Brand Components)

Viparspectra Pro Series Review (Budget Quantum LED Grow Lights)

Timber COB LED Review

Timber Grow Lights Review

Rapid LED DIY COB Review

Rapid LED DIY COB Grow Light Kits Review

Meijiu quantum board 480w led grow light

Meijiu Quantum Board LED Grow Light Review

Kingbrite Quantum Board LED Grow Light Review

Kingbrite LED Grow Light Review

Recent Articles

Types Of Grow Lights For Indoor Plants

Types Of Grow Lights For Indoor Plants (Which Is Best For You?)

How To Tell If A High Pressure Sodium Bulb Is Bad

How To Tell If A High Pressure Sodium Bulb Is Bad

6/2 Light Schedule

6/2 Light Schedule (Why We Don’t Recommend It)

Leaving Grow Lights On 24 Hours

Leaving Grow Lights On 24 Hours: Killer Yield Or Yield Killer?

What Size Grow Tent Do I Need For Plants

What Size Grow Tent Do I Need For X Plants?

Footer

Important Pages

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Resources

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Search

Image Reuse

Images on this site are free to share (unless attributed to a 3rd party), as long as you give credit to Grow Light Info and provide a link back to the page from which the image came.

Disclaimer

Some recommended products may use affiliate links. GrowLightInfo.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

*Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates.

Copyright © 2022 · Grow Light Info · All rights reserved.