The original Maxibright 660w Daylight LED Grow Light was a total game-changer when it appeared at the end of 2019. It came with a long list of innovative design features and it outperformed units that were twice the price, which explains why it went on to become our best-selling lighting fixture of 2020.
Maxibright, however, aren’t known for resting on their laurels, so to stay ahead of the competition they’ve released two updated 660w models that outperform the original in multiple areas. The Maxibright Daylight 660w Pro LED Grow Light is especially impressive.
V2 on the left and the original design on the right
Why Are There Two New Models?
Maxibright’s 660w units are designed to cover areas of 1.2 to 1.5 square metres. If you’re growing in this kind of space, you’ve now got two options: the standard model and the ultra-efficient Pro. The standard model comes in at the reduced price of £809.95, while offering the same performance as the 2019 original (2.3 umols per watt), so it’s guaranteed to bring in killer yields! If you really want to max out, the Daylight LED 660w Pro has been beefed up to produce a huge 2.7 umols per watt, placing it among the most efficient LEDs currently available. It’s a little bit pricier at £889.95, but for us it’s worth the extra spend. With greater efficiency levels, you get more light and less heat, making the environment even easier to control and delivering enormous crops.
A couple of quick tips – both of these units generate so little heat that temperatures can often get too low, especially during the winter. Keeping a heater on a thermostat is a good way to ensure that temps remain optimal. Also, when growing with these units, fruits tend to swell up to such a huge size that the potential for botrytis (internal rot) can be increased. Use a decent silicon product to keep plants as tough as possible and keep a close eye on your humidity.
What Else Has Had an Upgrade?
Aside from the difference in efficiency, the two new units are otherwise identical. You’ll be glad to hear that the spectrum hasn’t changed much from the original version, because it was perfect to begin with! It’s still fine-tuned for fruit production, with enough blue light to keep stretching to a minimum and promote rapid veg growth. These characteristics make Maxibright 600w LEDs great all-rounders that will deliver the goods right the way through the cycle.
Original 660W Spectrum:
New 660W Pro Spectrum:
The styling is now even easier on the eye, with a sleek and slender form-factor. The new, compact ballast not only looks the part, but also gives you an extra couple of inches to play with, which is perfect if you’re operating with limited headroom. They’re a lot lighter, too, so they’ll put hardly any strain on your grow tent.
The design improvements allow them to be packaged in a smaller box, making them even easier to transport and ship. Many LEDs of this type (like the Gavita 1700e) still require a pallet delivery, but the Maxibrights can be sent through the post or moved to new locations quickly and easily.
The thumb screws have also been upgraded to clips, which are tidier and more secure, and the hanging eyelets have had a revamp, too. These units feel much more robust and less cumbersome, and they are quicker and easier to set up.
You’ll be glad to hear that they’re IP65 rated, which protects the internals from low pressure water jets and dust, giving you complete peace of mind. We still wouldn’t recommend getting them wet, but it’s reassuring to know that either of these units could safely take a splash or two if the worst ever happened.
The new plug-and-play dimmer is now tethered, allowing you to alter output levels in 25% increments from outside the grow-space. For even more control, we’ now stock Maxibright’s Daylight Lighting Controller, which can centrally regulate up to a hundred of these fixtures, while giving you access to features like sunrise / sunset and auto-dimming.
With a 50,000 hours effective life span, you’ll be pulling down huge crops for years to come, and there’s even a three-year manufacturer’s warranty for that extra bit of reassurance.
All-in-all, we're very impressed! Maxibright have pulled it off again, and we're sure that 2021 will just as good a year for them as 2020!
