Have a beautiful 550, but the cassette lcd is reading erratic.. any way to fix this? I am fairly handy and not afraid to try..

Ive delved into the LCD on my PC-55, and its not particularly easy to work on and there's a fair chance that disturbing it may make it worse!
What I saw the problem to be is that the ribbon cables, (less like cable more like paper with coated carbon tracks), start to separate from the LCD glass. This is because they are held in place with a mixture of adhesive and tape.

If you do attempt this inspect the ribbon for separation and where its adrift - press in - it helps to have the unit powered - and see what effect this has on the displays characters. Hopefully the ones to the local area should light up. To fix use some silver - conductive paint (like this: http://cpc.farnell.com/electro...?MER=e-bb45-00001003)
to rejoin these separations. But be careful because the consistency is very runny and could easily short the rest of the display out!

There is also another product that is carbon based product, rather than silver based and is not as runny.