Toshiba TV29C90 problem; Image fades to black...

[John in Detroit]

It may be the laser is sticking and when you put it in the position you
cite as working that gravity is providing just enough "Assist" to get it
unstuck... This could be due to old lubrication on the slide.

However, I assure you the above is 100% speculation (My best guess) and
may well be nothing more

Just remember, My advice is worth exactlly what you paid for it and
your money has already been refunded

Mark D. Zacharias wrote:

"Yde" <y.vdzwaag@chello.nl> wrote in message
news:341f3$434d7da6$50395ac7$23666@news.chello.nl...

NOSPAM> schreef in bericht
news:deedncvEX9738NDenZ2dnUVZ8qudnZ2d@scarlet.biz...

It's probably the micro switch not detecting the MiniDisc:
http://members.tripod.com/~snnake11/

Jos

"Yde" <y.vdzwaag@chello.nl> schreef in bericht
news:43eec$434c1af3$50395ac7$22424@news.chello.nl...

Hello,

I've bought a goodlooking second-hand mds-501. The minidisk has one
problem. When starting for the first time the unit won't accept the
disc. The disc starts turning but the laserunit does not move.
I've to place it vertical on the side of the powerbutton. When he
recognices it I can place it horizontal again. After playing or
recording the first minidisk the problem seems to be over. I can play or
record for hours without a problem but the next day the problem is back.
Problems with a switch?? Heath problem. (when the unit is warm after a
while it works perfectly )
Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance. Yde


Thanks for your reply. But the minidisc is detected. The disc starts
spinning but the laser doesn't move a litlle, what he does when succeeding
reading the TOC.
Only when the machine is cold he refuges to read the disc. Later on it
works perfectly.
I've treated the switch beside the laserunit with kontaktspray. I've
cleaned the laser. But nothing works. The only thing I can think of is
that the laser has not got the right temperature at the start.
More suggestions?

Thanks

Yde
The Netherlands





Just to be clear. Is this a 510 (MDS-JE510) or a 501 (which I haven't heard
of)?

Mark Z.

--
John F Davis, in Delightful Detroit. WA8YXM(at)arrl(dot)net
"Nothing adds excitement like something that is none of your business"
Diabetic? http://community.compuserve.com/diabetes

 

[Mark D. Zacharias]

"Yde" <y.vdzwaag@chello.nl> wrote in message
news:647d4$434e9858$50395ac7$13133@news.chello.nl...

"Mark D. Zacharias" <spammenot@nonsense.net> schreef in bericht
newsBr3f.867$dO2.330@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...

"Yde" <y.vdzwaag@chello.nl> wrote in message
news:341f3$434d7da6$50395ac7$23666@news.chello.nl...

NOSPAM> schreef in bericht
news:deedncvEX9738NDenZ2dnUVZ8qudnZ2d@scarlet.biz...
It's probably the micro switch not detecting the MiniDisc:
http://members.tripod.com/~snnake11/

Jos

"Yde" <y.vdzwaag@chello.nl> schreef in bericht
news:43eec$434c1af3$50395ac7$22424@news.chello.nl...
Hello,

I've bought a goodlooking second-hand mds-501. The minidisk has one
problem. When starting for the first time the unit won't accept the
disc. The disc starts turning but the laserunit does not move.
I've to place it vertical on the side of the powerbutton. When he
recognices it I can place it horizontal again. After playing or
recording the first minidisk the problem seems to be over. I can play
or record for hours without a problem but the next day the problem is
back.
Problems with a switch?? Heath problem. (when the unit is warm after
a while it works perfectly )
Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance. Yde

Thanks for your reply. But the minidisc is detected. The disc starts
spinning but the laser doesn't move a litlle, what he does when
succeeding reading the TOC.
Only when the machine is cold he refuges to read the disc. Later on it
works perfectly.
I've treated the switch beside the laserunit with kontaktspray. I've
cleaned the laser. But nothing works. The only thing I can think of is
that the laser has not got the right temperature at the start.
More suggestions?

Thanks

Yde
The Netherlands




Just to be clear. Is this a 510 (MDS-JE510) or a 501 (which I haven't
heard of)?

Mark Z.

It's a MDS-501. This was the second minidiskrecorder from Sony. It was the
follow-up of the MDS-101.
This recorder is better build and more reliable than the MDS-JE series.
It was the first high-end minidisk.

Yde

If it's a different mech than the 510, which seems likely, then it's also
likely it doesn't suffer from the same switch problems as a previous poster
had thought.

Mark Z.

 

[figgy]

Allan MacLean Wrote:

I have a failed power supply for the Sony CPD-M151 flat screen monitor.

Power supply (AC-L200) green light flashes on and off every couple of
seconds on no load and faster when the monitor is connected.

I understand failure on these power supplies is a known problem, but I
haven't managed to track down what component is normally to blame -
can
anyone help?

Thanks

Allan

Replace the 50v 10uf capacitor and that will get u running m8


--
figgy

 

[Yde]

"John in Detroit" <Blanked@sbcglobal.net> schreef in bericht
news:mBx3f.116$W%7.40@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...

It may be the laser is sticking and when you put it in the position you
cite as working that gravity is providing just enough "Assist" to get it
unstuck... This could be due to old lubrication on the slide.

However, I assure you the above is 100% speculation (My best guess) and
may well be nothing more

Just remember, My advice is worth exactlly what you paid for it and
your money has already been refunded

Mark D. Zacharias wrote:
"Yde" <y.vdzwaag@chello.nl> wrote in message
news:341f3$434d7da6$50395ac7$23666@news.chello.nl...

NOSPAM> schreef in bericht
news:deedncvEX9738NDenZ2dnUVZ8qudnZ2d@scarlet.biz...

It's probably the micro switch not detecting the MiniDisc:
http://members.tripod.com/~snnake11/

Jos

"Yde" <y.vdzwaag@chello.nl> schreef in bericht
news:43eec$434c1af3$50395ac7$22424@news.chello.nl...

Hello,

I've bought a goodlooking second-hand mds-501. The minidisk has one
problem. When starting for the first time the unit won't accept the
disc. The disc starts turning but the laserunit does not move.
I've to place it vertical on the side of the powerbutton. When he
recognices it I can place it horizontal again. After playing or
recording the first minidisk the problem seems to be over. I can play
or record for hours without a problem but the next day the problem is
back.
Problems with a switch?? Heath problem. (when the unit is warm after a
while it works perfectly )
Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance. Yde


Thanks for your reply. But the minidisc is detected. The disc starts
spinning but the laser doesn't move a litlle, what he does when
succeeding reading the TOC.
Only when the machine is cold he refuges to read the disc. Later on it
works perfectly.
I've treated the switch beside the laserunit with kontaktspray. I've
cleaned the laser. But nothing works. The only thing I can think of is
that the laser has not got the right temperature at the start.
More suggestions?

Thanks

Yde
The Netherlands




Just to be clear. Is this a 510 (MDS-JE510) or a 501 (which I haven't
heard of)?

Mark Z.

--
John F Davis, in Delightful Detroit. WA8YXM(at)arrl(dot)net
"Nothing adds excitement like something that is none of your business"
Diabetic? http://community.compuserve.com/diabetes

Hello,

I cleaned the microswitches and treated them with kontaktspray.
But still the minidisc has the same problem. After 10 minutes everything is
normal. Has anybody any other solutions?? After 10 minutes it works
perfectly.Why not in the beginning??
Speed of the spindlemotor??
He accepts some discs better than other ones,

Thanks in advance

Yde

 

[Ken Weitzel]

Hi...

Not wanting to be a pest, but anyone have a chance to
take a look at this choke and identify it for me yet?

http://www.members.shaw.ca/kweitzel/resistor.jpg

Awful to have to admit, but haven't the faintest idea
how to read choke color codes

Take care.

Ken

 

[dkuhajda@locl.net]

http://www.hills2.u-net.com/electron/induct.htm#IndColor

Bottom of web page.

Looks like 1000uH.

 

[Ken Weitzel]

dkuhajda@locl.net wrote:

http://www.hills2.u-net.com/electron/induct.htm#IndColor

Bottom of web page.

Looks like 1000uH.

Hi...

Thanks very much, I sincerely appreciate it!

Take care.

Ken

 

[Stein-Olav Lund]

Ken Weitzel wrote:

dkuhajda@locl.net wrote:

Looks like 1000uH.

Ken

If you open a dud compact fluorescent bulb you often find this part in

them, actually!(1mH mini choke) Also are some high voltage caps and
other re-usable parts! Just don't cut yourself when opening the
thing...and do check the parts..

Stein
>

 

[b]

lastofthegyps...@hotmail.com Oct 21, 11:37 pm show options

Newsgroups: alt.video.vcr
From: lastofthegyps...@hotmail.com - Find messages by this author
Date: 21 Oct 2005 14:37:38 -0700
Local: Fri, Oct 21 2005 11:37 pm
Subject: Tape-eating Beta machine.
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show
original | Report Abuse

Hello,
About a month ago, I bought a Sears Betamax (model #5317) from a local
flea market, the man said that it had barely been used, that he'd
gotten it from a woman who'd never taken it out of the box.
For the first month of ownership, I had good reason to believe him.
The machine performed spectacularly (it is my third Beta machine, both
previous ones being Sony models, one from 1979, the other from
1985...amazingly, the 1979 model [the SL-5400] is still running well,
whereas the 1985 model [the SLHFR-70] died after eight months). But
yesterday, I noticed the sound of tape crinkling when I pressed
"rewind". A short while later (I use my VCRs pretty much constantly),
it ejected a cassette with some wrinkled tape trailing out. Not too
severe, though. I concluded that the gears were fragile, and that I
should use the older machine for re-winding, to save wear and tear on
the tape. I also know that the Sears Betamaxes are made by Sanyo...and

thus, many of them (my deck included) thread like older VHS
machines-they release the tape after every "stop". They have a
reputation for eating tape. But hey, I said to myself, some people
have had these machines running for 20 years, so this isn't the end of
the world.
This morning, I tried to rewind a tape just a little bit, to review one

scene, and then the transport functions appeared to shut down. I
couldn't eject, play, fast-forward, rewind, record, or pause the tape
at all. So I just now opened the machine up and snipped the tape free
from the works, and I tested it, it works fine. But it did give me
quite a scare, so I'm wondering...is there anything I can do to help
prevent this from happening again (and preventing more wrinkled and
damaged tape, for that matter)?
I'd really appreciate any information.
Thank you,
W. Dyess.


gerry wrote:

One of the reasons Sony Betamax lost out to VHS VCRs was Betamax's
reputation for bad rewind motors. But eating tape is not limited to
Betamax VCRs. The Beta VCR I have never ate tapes when I used it, but
I got rid of a Toshiba VHS VCR that ruined tapes over 10 years ago and
still have a JVC VCR that also ruined one or two tapes. My only
suggestion is that you shake the tape before inserting it, to loosen
the tape, in case the tape had been tightly rewound.

shaking the tape? That is absolutely useless advice. A slack tape is
likely to chew more easily and in any case, if the tape is packed too
tight you'll need to respool/re-wind it, which shaking wil not do.
Anyway, this is not an audio tape where the spools can jam against the
cassette housing, videocassettes in contrast have far more elaobrate
tape paths and will not jam if the tape is would 'tight' on the spool .


The machine clearly has perished rubber idler tyres or other parts in
the drive which lead to slippage, and the deck not spooling the tape
back into the cassette when unthreading. This will mean replacement of
the relevant parts, especially given the fact the OP's vcr has been sat

around and probably still has the 20 year old originals (they tend to
die after about 5 or 6 years if not earlier). These parts deteriorate
if you use the deck or not.
Get it to a tech if unsure how to proceed, or see www.repairfaq.org 's
vcr section
-B.



gerry wrote:

'Absolutely useless" If the tape sensor on his old Betamax is in bad
shape, putting in a tightly rewound tape is the last thing to do.

what do you mean by 'tape sensor'? since this may mean cass-in leaf
switch, IR/ light sensors etc etc, to avoid any doubts define that part
please.

Shaking a cassette has almost no effect on slackness, but it does cause
the hub to move a little, loosening the hub. I am speaking from
personal experience, I have a Betamax VCR. As to the comment that the
tape is not an audio tape, my understanding was tha Betamax VCRs were
exactly like audiotapes,

....then you have no 'understanding' at all. I repeat: the 'shaking a
casstte' approach will not solve this kind of problem and it will
recurr.

with no 2 second prewind like VHS units, whose

M-loop design had the tapes wind around the recording drum in an
M-shaped path. Betamaxes were much better for editing than early VHS
models because of that simple tape path (later VHS VCRs fixed that
problem).

....relevance of that last comment to this discussion?? we were talkng
about poor spooling and tape eating, not the relative merits of editing
facilities.

Someone who has bought an old Betamax does not seem like the

person who would spend at least $75 in an attempt to fix worn out parts
in a 25 year old VCR, on a repair that may not last long.

I can see you're speaking from experience here - and your experience is
clearly very little....please explain why repairing a vcr 'may not last
long'.

Why is it

that people with the least information try to sound as if they know the
most.

I was hoping you would answer that, but then again, just from reading
your ill informed and speculative post you seem to have already done
so!

"Perished rubber idler tyres?" The rubber on the tape guide path

posts in a Betamax machine are not auto tires that come in contact with
a hard surface.

I was talking about the spool clutch and similar 'transmission' parts.

The repetitive stress of winding a tape around the

helical drum, the stress in drawing a tape out of the shell and the
minor problem that any Beta tape the guy has could be over 20 years old
all contribute to tape loading and playback failure.

....and the reason why that process is failing now is probably due to
perished rubber parts which have deteriorated (yawn).

You notice that in this posting, I have stuck to the facts

No, you have stuck to non technical speculation verging on abuse.

as I know

them from personal experience. And having a 20 year old Betamax, I can
tell you, b, that the parts on a Betamax do not deteriorate after 5 or
6 years,

Many rubber parts like idler tyres and belts in vcrs deteriorate in
about that time - sometimes takes longer though, but not uncommon to
have to replace them. I see this condition daily. In fact I have
recently had to replace numerous pinch rollers in vcrs made as little
as 4-5 years ago.

those machines were expensive and built like rocks, until

their rewind motors burnt out from overuse. And use spellcheck next
time you make a posting, b, if you want to impress people with your
technical knowledge.

spellcheck what?
I'm not out to impress anyone, just wanted to point out a likely and
well documented failure cause I see daily. Sorry if you didn't like it,
maybe you should find yourself a non technical NG where your ill
founded comments and criticisms may find a more willing audience among
the technically ignorant.
-regards, B.

 

[gerry]

Methinks, you doth protest too loudly. Have it your own way. Your
mean comment about shaking a tape to loosen it was uncalled for. Now
you have have spent a considerable amount of time criticizing my
comments. It is not worth the effort, since, as you must know, VCRs
are at the end of the line, having had a good 25 year run from 1978
(when they became widespread must-have but very expensive consumer
items) to 2003 (when DVD players really took control of the movie
rental market). Have a nice day, from a "technically ignorant person."
Ha, ha, ha!

 

[Ol' Duffer]

In article <1130364184.236610.90350@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
do_not_spam_me@my-deja.com says...

Why do the battery powered clocks in personal computers tend to keep
worse time than quartz watches, even the $1 ones?

The computer batteries measure fine, at least 3.15V.

I thought that the problem was temperature swings in the computers
(25-38C), but a couple of cheapo watches taped inside the computers
kept better time.

The short answer is that computer makers don't care.

More specifically, even cheap watches usually have a trimmer
capacitor on the timebase crystal that someone actually adjusts.
Computer makers usually choose to save pennies by using a fixed
capacitor and not having to pay labor to adjust.

 

[BillW50]

"w_tom" <w_tom1@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4362B37B.F5917856@hotmail.com...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 19:25:47 -0400

Microsoft did not blackmail IBM into killing off OS/2...

Actually it was the other way around. As IBM black mailed into writing
OS/2. And IBM's master plan was to get everyone off of MS-DOS and on to
OS/2. Then IBM would have OS/2 changed to run on only true IBM PCs. Thus
killing off the clone market and MS as well. This was all documented and
shown on PBS.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

 

[Mark D. Zacharias]

<electricitym@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1130642608.685483.286560@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Definately NOT a slipped tooth but rather a dirty sensor under the tray
and/or a faulty ribbon flex cable that connects the drawer to the main
pcb.
electricitym
----------------------------

Both wrong - there's a service bulletin on this. A 1K resistor added to the
circuit, across an emitter - base junction on the cd main board as I recall.

Mark Z.

 

[BillW50]

"Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:i3s4m1hrkf574e5p79inehev45bvon2uvt@4ax.com...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

mark349@lycos.com writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design to the
old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for many of
us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the others was
soundless. And a good number of Windows applications would routinely
crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under Windows 3.1. Then the
OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a couple of years and crashed the
whole system. Then the FixPaks often caused more problems than they
fixed. IBM programmers are morons!

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

 

[BillW50]

<vanagonvw@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1130531700.900539.275640@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Date: 28 Oct 2005 13:35:00 -0700

Hardly dead,

You mean hardly useful! And IBM dropped support a few months before they
were saying they would never drop OS/2 support. IBM has never done
anything except lie to me over and over again.

and oh by the way, NT was built on early OS/2 code. NT and 2000 had
plenty of OS/2 code in their kernel, and can even run text mode
OS/2 apps. If you had seen the code...... you would know that.

I did a search through OS/2 files for the Microsoft copyright in Warp a
few years ago. And Warp was littered everywhere with Microsoft's code
throughout OS/2.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

 

[Anthony Fremont]

"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in message
news:v429f.441$p37.342@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com...

"Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:i3s4m1hrkf574e5p79inehev45bvon2uvt@4ax.com...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

mark349@lycos.com writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design to the
old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for many of
us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the others was
soundless. And a good number of Windows applications would routinely
crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under Windows 3.1. Then the
OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a couple of years and crashed the
whole system. Then the FixPaks often caused more problems than they
fixed. IBM programmers are morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then? IBM
contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987. M$ drug their
feet on the release, while spending IBM's money, so that they could get
Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by saying that OS/2 just wasn't stable enough
for release yet. Yeah, no conflict of interest their. Finally IBM got
fed up and took the project away from M$. There are very many
suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the graphics system calls of
Win 3.0 and OS/2.

 

[BillW50]

"James Sweet" <jamessweet@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%Ig8f.32451$gF4.27376@trnddc07...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 03:15:07 GMT

and the inability of windows to pre-emptively
multitask,

Incorrect.

snip

How about offering some insight rather than just a big buzzer?

Depends on the version really, Win 3.1 and earlier didn't offer pre-
emptive multitasking,

All DOS applications ran under Windows 3.1 preemptively.

when an application was minimized it generally ground to a halt.

If the application doesn't want CPU time, it doesn't get it. This is
what makes cooperative tasking really great! I love cooperative tasking
when it is done right.

Win 9x was a big improvement over this but still mediocre. Win
NT/2K/XP is better still, and are generally quite good OS's,

That is your belief and my opinions are mixed. Take this 2595XDVD
running Windows 2000 with 192MB of RAM (its maxed out). And it can't
handle streaming audio/video anything faster than 100k. Yet the other
laptop, same thing except it runs Windows 98SE has no problems streaming
coming in at 800k or higher. So in this case, Windows 98 is better at
multitasking than Windows 2000/XP are.

but the multitasking is still rather poor compared to several other
OS's on the market. Of course any OS is a compromise, what you gain
in one area you often lose in another.

No in my humble opinion and experience.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

 

[BillW50]

<mark349@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:43625539$1$woehfu$mr2ice@news.aros.net...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:29:38 -0600

Sixteen-bit versions of Windows never did preemptive multitasking.
Thirty-two bit versions did and do, for 32-bit applications (but not
for 16-bit applications). Windows NT does it for all applications,

No, windows NT does not pre-emptively multitask.

Actually Windows 3.1 did preemptive multitasking for DOS applications.
Which was like a few weeks difference than OS/2 claimed to do so.

Win NT/2K/XP is better still, and are generally quite good
OS's, but the multitasking is still rather poor compared to several
other OS's on the market.

This is because it only multitasks, but it is not pre-emptive
multitasking. The kernel does not have complete control of each
application.

It depends on the Windows application. All DOS applications use
preemptive and 32-bit Windows uses preemptive. But 16-bit Windows
applications uses cooperative tasking (which in my experience is often
better than preemptive tasking anyway). This is true for Windows 3.1,
and Windows 9x. I'm not sure what happens under NT/2K/XP with 16-bit
Windows applications. As who runs 16-bit Windows applications anymore?

Not true. Multitasking on all the NT-based versions of Windows is
excellent.

It is very good, but it is not pre-emptive. OS/2, for one, uses
pre-emptive and it is so far ahead and superior to the way windows
works, folks would not believe it. The difference between the two is
beyond night and day.

OS/2 sucked BIG TIME for preemptive tasking Windows 3.1 applications!
Some Windows applications crashed and burned under OS/2 when the same
ran stable as a rock under the real Windows. OS/2 often multitasked
Windows applications far slower than the real Windows OS. And that is
why preemptive tasking sucks! It often gives too much CPU time to
something that doesn't need it and not enough time for one that does
need it.

To fix the flaw with preemptive tasking, OS often includes an
application priority level that one could adjust so it behaves better
with other multitasking functions. Cooperative tasking has no need for
any of this tweaking nonsense. Plus everything in the multitasking sense
often runs faster because the stupid preemptive tasking OS isn't
screwing everything up with its added CPU overhead.

The difference will prove to be in your definition. The original
definition has been absconded with by microsoft in order to make it
appear that their inferior implementation actually meets the
requirements, so if it is really important that you 'win' that's okay
with me.

Mark

You have never mentioned cooperative tasking in anything you have
posted. Me thinks you really don't know about the different methods of
multitasking and the pros and cons of each.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

 

[BillW50]

"DBLEXPOSURE" <celstuff@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:avSdnUyUPqwLiPzeRVn-2g@midco.net...
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:58:06 -0500

... look for a program called D4. It is a free download and will
keep your clock synced to universal time. Also, Widows XP can sync
to the same time servers that D4 uses. Both work great!

Nobody I've seen yet thanked you for recommending this fine program.
Well I for one am very grateful! Although I usually set my computers
clocks about 5 to 10 times per year because they were off about a
minute. But now this is one task I don't have to worry about anymore.
<grin>

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

 

[Bob]

"Bob" <bobsjunkmail@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:F2X8f.26171$x6.9092@bignews6.bellsouth.net...

"Steve TR" <noemail@all.com> wrote in message
news:RuS8f.529$qk4.46@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Hey, thanks for the advice. I had no idea what to search for to find the
(as I was calling it) generic printed circuit boards.

I can solder wires together, but just never have had much luck with
soldering components together. maybe I'll buy a bag full of LEDs and see
what happens...

Maybe you can just trim one of these down...
http://www.alltronics.com/Light_Sources.htm

The arrow is already rectangular.

This http://www.alltronics.com/images/23L002.jpg has 18 real bright leds
in a pattern..
Here's the full list.... http://www.robotics.com/surplus.html