With the delivery of the Sinclair Spectrum Next in full swing for the first Kickstarter, several owners have reported a small problem when using peripherals. Some edge connectors partially obscure the HDMI port on the ‘Next when connected.

To alleviate this, I designed a through connector extender. It pushes the rear edge connector back allowing HDMI connection. I have also included expansion facilities in the way of a set of header pins. This can be utilised in different ways to connect to other interfaces.

I have prototyped the first run in ‘ProjectSPECCY’ red but the production version will be black in keeping with the ‘Next’s aesthetic. This is a development of the Spectrum Backplane, and in common, it is a straight through connector. This means that despite it being designed for the Next, it can also be used with any Sinclair Spectrum model and also clones, provided they have a standard edge connector.

The expansion connections can be used in different ways. For instance, you can solder a header (male) in and mount a short edge connector type PCB to mount vertical interfaces. Or you could fit a header socket and solder the edge connector PCB to the header plug and use it as a vertical adaptor or remove to connect your own peripherals.

Once the prototype has been proved, I’ll be selling the adaptor on Tindie in two versions. One with just the pre-soldered edge connector and one with the added connectors for expansion.