On 4/20/2012 11:52 AM, Robert Adamson wrote:
  Well maybe (though no guarantee there), but the 555
would likely have the
 same sort of lifetime as a microcontroller - arguably poorer. 
That is 30 seconds. Wait, I guess we are not discussing marketing.
I would go with the 555 timer, the Arduino could be running near its
max clock freq.
  Bob 
Ben.