LED TT strobe schematic

[error401]

I am trying to retrofit my Dual 510 with an LED strobe, as the neon it came with starts only intermittently and sometimes goes out. I have built the attached simple circuit on the neon strobe PCB, it works fine in steady state, but kills LEDs at startup. I'm sure some may consider it a safety risk as well, but either way - an I or V surge is killing the LEDs at start. D1 is actually two LEDs in series, not that it matters.

I am wondering if someone has a simple (must fit in a very small space) alternative or can tell me what is wrong with my circuit that is frying LEDs. It'd be a bonus to get 120Hz instead of 60Hz.

Thanks

[analog_sa]

If the LED keeps diying you can try reducing the cap by half. And fit a high power zener across the LED. For frequency doubling you can try feeding the LED from the output of a bridge.

[richie00boy]

They are dying due to the cap being a short at first turn on, an if that is on a part of the waveform that is much more then zero the current surge is too much. The solution is to add some resistance.