Equipment

A catalog of the named equipment used to run aquatic competitions, timing consoles, lane hardware, connectors and cabling, start systems, judging hardware, scoreboards, and the pool equipment that defines the field of play. Each entry is a short reference: what the part is, its manufacturer part number, common names, and a citation to its source manual.

What lives here¶

Equipment is grouped by role:

• Timing hardware, consoles and their interfaces.
• Lane hardware, touchpads, pushbuttons, and deck plates.
• Connectors and cabling, the wiring that links the lanes to the console.
• Start systems, starters, lane speakers, and strobes.
• Judging hardware, diving terminals, water polo clocks.
• Displays, scoreboards and video boards.

The catalog is also grouped by discipline. Most articles so far cover swimming hardware, listed below; the other disciplines and the shared infrastructure have their own sections:

• Diving equipment: judges’ terminals, diving scoring systems, and surface agitation.
• Water polo equipment: goals, game and shot-clock consoles, and deck displays.
• Common equipment: scoreboards, cabling, consoles, audio, and data hardware used across every discipline, including the scoreboards section.

Articles¶

Timers, the Colorado Time Systems swim timing consoles; the current Gen7 platform ships in two models that differ in deck cabling:

• Gen7 Serial Timer: the connect-hub console (GEN7-TMR), for installations built around Gen7’s newer cabling.
• Gen7 Legacy Timer: the multi-pin console (GEN7-TMR-L), a drop-in replacement that reuses existing CTS lane hardware.

Start systems, the units that begin the race, cataloged by manufacturer in the overview; the Colorado Time Systems line comes in two families:

• Infinity Start System: the portable entry-level starter (INF-SSM, discontinued 2024).
• Infinity Pro Start System: its current successor (INF-PRO).
• Championship Start System: the deck-wired full-featured starter (SS, discontinued), and its legacy predecessor the CHAMP-SSM generation.
• Championship Elite Start System: its current successor (SSE), with visual start signaling.

External speakers, the loudspeakers a start system drives beyond its own built-in speaker; the per-vendor articles cover the lane speakers, and each start system’s article covers its other speakers:

• Colorado Time Systems lane speakers: the SP-6/45 under-block speaker.
• Daktronics lane speakers: the 306-45-54 under-block speaker.
• International Sports Timing lane speakers: the SPKRBLOCK under-block speaker system.
• Superior Swim Timing lane speakers: the SST lane speaker and harness.
• Swiss Timing lane speakers: the in-block loudspeaker and mobile loudspeaker sets.

Touchpads, the Colorado Time Systems touch panels that sense each lane’s finish and turn:

• AquaGrip Touchpad: the current air-filled panel (TP-…G / TP-…GF) with a patented non-slip surface.
• Standard Touchpad: the discontinued pad it replaced (TP-… / TP-…F), the same body with a plain non-skid surface.
• Multizone Pads: a training pad CTS named in a 2008 catalogue and never described, with no evidence that it was built.

Semi-automatic timing, the timing systems that start with the start signal and are stopped by human timers at the finish:

• Pushbuttons: the hand-held backup buttons a timer presses at the finish, including the Colorado Time Systems Pushbutton (PB-6, the timer’s “pickle”) on a 6 ft cord.
• Dolphin Wireless Stopwatch Timing System: the Colorado Time Systems wireless stopwatch system, whose watches start together from the Dolphin Starter Unit.

Backstroke start devices, the backstroke ledges (foot wedges) that give a swimmer a non-slip foothold at the start and retract clear of the water once the race begins:

• Backstroke Start Device: the Colorado Time Systems spring-retracting foot wedge (143081-C / 143081-CL).

More equipment articles are added over time.

How entries work¶

Each part gets its own short article with an infobox (part number, manufacturer, common names, source manual) beside a plain-language description. Entries are written fresh and text-first; photographs are added only when they are the wiki’s own or used with permission, see Sources & citations. Part of this catalog is still to be written.

See also¶

• Vendors: the manufacturers of the equipment cataloged here
• Software: the programs that drive this hardware
• Meet management: the competition workflow the hardware serves

See everything tagged Equipment.