The amazing Planet Simulator is a project for the Origins Institute at the McMaster University. Design and build is done by Angstorm Engineering in Kitchener Ontario, and they invited Intravision to assist with the LED lights. The vision and idea behind this chamber was to replicate planetary conditions on earth before the start of life, or on other earth like planets under different spectra stars than our sun. The vacuum chamber can deliver a temperature range from -20C up to +100C, while Intravision’s task was to develop the LED lights, from UVC to Far-Red. The light emitted into these chambers were arranged thorough 4 crystal glass windows.
As of 2018 we were able to get both UVB and UVC LED’s, but the light intensity of these turned out to be insufficient in replicating “extra-planetary” light levels emitted from the sun. In order to reach the needed intensities, the UVC and UVB lights had to be based on good old-fashioned light-tubes, and consumed 2 of the 4 windows. The visual lights based on integrated RGBW LED-Engine chips, as well as the UVA and Far-Red LED’s were then integrated onto 2 copper PCB’s
McMaster University, Hamilton
Kitchener Ontario, The
Origins Institute at McMaster
Physics and Astronomy