The first 48k Spectrum to arrive works fine, but the image is pretty flickery.  I’d assumed that was because the RF connector looked rusty, so after asking on Facebook/Twitter, I gave it a solid clean!  That requires taking the whole thing apart of course, and that means risking the paper thin membrane connectors which are shoved into the motherboard.

The inside of this Spectrum is different though, it’s a 3B apparently, and the connectors the membrane goes into are lying at an angle, I’m not sure if that’s original or not.

The membrane connectors are also slightly thicker and tougher than I would have expected, so I’m wondering if it’s been replaced at some stage (if it has, nice job, the metal faceplate looks well attached).  Anyway, here’s the back of the board.

And here’s the RF connector, it’s not as bad as I had feared.

5 careful minutes with some abrasive material, and it was significantly cleaner.  I also took the opportunity to clean up the rest of the board and then put it all back together (before I remembered to photograph the RF connector again).  Sadly, despite the clean, the image isn’t significantly better, so I need to ask around and see what else could be causing it.  In the meantime, here’s a pretty useless shot of the cleaned connector inside the case.