Something on the side – Spectrum Next Blinkenlights

Back a few years ago (wow, it was that long!) I backed the Spectrum Next

Problem is, those lovely coloured bars over on the right

They’re not LED’s………….

Well, I’m gonna try to fix it……

And, here’s the first step……..Those arches are 17.2mm inner diameter and about 20mm outer diameter.

The inserts when fitted have an spacing of about 18.5mm centre to centre…

 

so, in the Next they’ll look something like this ….

 

 

Now, for a sense of scale – The tops of the inserts  are just 2.88mm at their widest

and less than 2.8mm tall…..

Those two long bits you can see on the insert are used to ultra-sonically weld the inserts to the black plastic case to hold them permanently in place. Here’s a close-ish shot of the rear of the inserts in a case. You can see the plastic ‘melted’ into a blob around the holes.

This is good for doing upgrades as it’s likley that the inserts are easily removed by simply drilling a bit – maybe a 5mm – 10mm drill bit will nicely remove the excess plastic, giving a nice taper and freeing the insert. It’ll also make the hole a little larger which should assist well with adding wires to the LED’s i’m going to use……..

 

On with the research!