Who says you gotta be "SNOOPING"?Who are you snooping on in the dark? Why?
That is what I really need. What do you mean by "pulse"?I've built a few for my security cameras. Get LEDs with a data sheet, you can pulse them at a higher current, and increase the range considerably. My DVR records at 30 fps, and I don't notice any flicker. The IR LEDS used in remotes can take a lot of current pulsed, as intended. Think they are a little more robust than visible spectrum LEDs.
The real goal is to make IR spot lights and IR flood lights, per se for the purpose of aiding my security cameras to see more.To the OP, what is the intended power supply voltage?
I used a couple 555s in a circuit to scare off cats many years ago (still working, sort of). It was meant to send out a 21 kHz beep, every 15 seconds. Most of the time, you can only here a click from the speakers, but in the winter you can hear a tone. Don't know about the PWM, I use microcontrollers for that.OK, so you're using average power to rate the LEDs, but how are you calculating peak power that is safe?
What aspect of a 555 is temperature unstable? Frequency definately, since we are talking an RC oscillator, but I suspect PWM ratio is pretty stable. I've never heard any reason to assume otherwise.
To the OP, what is the intended power supply voltage?