Soft blinker with a NE555

And again a circuit with my favourite IC: the NE555!
Here is my version of the soft blinker:

 

You see right, there is no preresistor for the LED, due to the extremly high base resistor of the transistor!
Here is how much current flows through the LED:

  

    The current is between 2 and 5 milliamps, so you could also connect an npn-transistor to drive whole arrays with it.
It is not a sine wave, but a sawtooth.
But hey, it's a soft blinker with a NE555!
Here is a video I took of my prototype.



/apexys/01132011/1540