Colorado Time Systems Pace Clock Controller

From Libre Aquatics Wiki, the free aquatics reference

The pace clock controller, UPC-C, is a Colorado Time Systems (CTS) keypad console that stores training workouts and plays them out on a pace clock or a scoreboard, without a timing console in the loop.¹² It holds fifty workouts and can run ten of them at once on separate displays, so each line of a multi-line board can pace a different lane.¹

Role in training¶

The controller is the workout source rather than the display: it sends intervals over a data cable to whatever CTS clock or numeric board is connected, and the display counts them. The pace clocks overview sets out the alternatives, which are a clock programmed at the unit itself, a timing console running a pace clock program, or the later wireless handheld.

CTS sells it on portability, describing it as palm-sized, able to go in a bag or a briefcase, and usable on any CTS swim scoreboard including one at another pool.²

Naming and the Ultimate Pace Clock¶

The manual calls the product only the pace clock controller and never prints UPC-C. That designation comes from the datasheet, from CTS’s 2008 display catalogue, where it appears in a part-number list beside the PC- and PCW- pace clocks, and from other CTS documents that write the two forms together.²³

The letters are an abbreviation of an earlier product. The Ultimate Pace Clock was sold as a system in three forms. Two paired the keypad console with a portable display, one of them lit by LEDs and the other light-reflective; the third was the console with no display at all. Throughout that product’s guide the console is the UPC console.⁴ The controller’s own faceplate is printed Ultimate Pace Clock rather than Pace Clock Controller, and a dealer lists the part as the Ultimate Pace Clock Controller under SKU 1151-UPC-C.⁵⁶ The console described here is therefore the surviving member of that family, marketed later under a plainer name.

The evidence is not entirely consistent. F901 itself names the Ultimate Pace Clock as something separate that the controller can also drive, alongside the SASC9.¹ That would follow if the name had narrowed from the whole system to the portable displays, but no source states it.

Design and controls¶

The console is a hand-held unit with a membrane keypad and a 32-character LCD, which CTS gives 1/8 in digits.² It measures 2.5 in H × 7.5 in L × 4.0 in W (6.4 × 19.1 × 10.2 cm) and weighs 0.8 lb (0.36 kg), running from a single 9-volt battery or from 120 VAC through transformer 015-555.² Left unused for five minutes it turns itself off, unless a scoreboard or pace clock is attached.¹

Two controls sit outside the keypad, unmarked. The power-off control is in the printed “Colorado Time Systems” lettering above the RUN MODE key and has to be pressed twice in quick succession; the control that erases every stored workout is under the logo sweep, and the RESET key confirms the erase.¹

The remaining keys divide into mode keys (EDIT MODE and RUN MODE), selection keys (WORKOUT, SET, SELECT SCBD), the programming keys (REPEAT SET, DEC. INTERVAL, COUNT UP, COUNT DOWN), the horn pair (HORN ON, HORN OFF), the run controls (START/STOP, RESET), TIME OF DAY, and a numeric keypad with C/E and ENTER.¹⁵ Where a field already shows the wanted value, ENTER accepts it; C/E clears it first otherwise.¹

Workouts and capacity¶

A workout is a series of sets, and a set may itself contain several subsets, so a single set can read as ten repeats of 1:10, then two of 35 seconds, then one of 5:00. The console stores 50 workouts, each of up to 30 sets, each set of up to 15 subsets, and saves each one as it is entered rather than on a separate command.¹

Programming a set is a count of repeats followed by an interval, both confirmed with ENTER, and a second ENTER closes the set. Three modifiers change what that set does:¹

REPEAT SET runs the whole set again a stated number of times, up to 99. The manual notes a vocabulary difference worth knowing when workouts come from elsewhere: what the controller calls a repeating set, Hy-Tek’s Workout Manager calls a circuit set.
DEC. INTERVAL shortens the interval by a fixed number of seconds after every repeat, so 20 repeats can start at 1:00 and tighten by a second each time.
COUNT DOWN switches a set from the default count-up to counting down to zero, shown on the LCD as U or D.

The horn, on displays that have one, is programmed in run mode as a number of tones and a pace. Set to the number of swimmers in a lane and the gap between them, it sends each swimmer off in turn; set to a count and a longer interval, it marks goal splits through a long swim.¹

Driving several displays¶

The console addresses displays by channel, numbered 1 to 10 with 10 entered as 0, using the SELECT SCBD key. Selecting a channel and then loading a workout and set binds that workout to that display, and repeating the sequence binds a different workout to the next one.¹ CTS frames this as one workout per line of an eight-lane scoreboard, with no timing console involved.²

Double-clicking START/STOP starts every loaded workout at once, and double-clicking it again stops them all. A single workout can be edited, stopped or restarted without disturbing the others, by selecting its channel first.¹

Hy-Tek Workout Manager¶

Workouts written on a computer can be loaded instead of keyed in. F901 documents no protocol of its own. It sends the reader to Workout Manager’s own instructions and tells them to pick the download aimed at the CTS pace clock software that runs on a timing console, naming the System 6, the System 5 and the Swim IV, so to the software the controller looks like one of those consoles.¹

The physical path is the supplied RJ45 cable into the DB9-to-RJ45 converter and on to a serial port. The console is armed to receive by pressing ON, then EDIT MODE twice. Downloaded workouts are afterwards editable on the keypad like any other.¹

Workout Manager was a program in its own right when F901 was written. It is now a licensed option inside Hy-Tek’s Team Manager, reached from that program’s own menu, which is why later documents credit the same download to Team Manager instead.⁷

Using a scoreboard as a plain pace clock¶

A facility that wants its scoreboard to behave as an ordinary sweep clock has no mode for it. The manual gives a workaround instead: program a set of 99 repeats of 60:00 counting up, a second subset the same, and REPEAT SET 45. CTS puts the resulting run time at a little more than a year. The same arrangement extends to 14 subsets with the fifteenth used for the repeat, and can be copied across sets 2 to 30. CTS adds that it suits two of its other displays as well, the SASC9 and the Ultimate Pace Clock.¹

Time of day is a built-in feature rather than a workaround, though a limited one. TIME OF DAY posts the hour and minute on a module set to channel 01, 11 or 0F. The console has no real-time clock, so the time has to be keyed in again after every power-off, and CTS suggests running from the AC adapter rather than the battery when using it this way.¹

Specifications¶

Physical figures are from the CTS datasheet; the operating figures are from the manual.


Type	Workout controller for pace clocks and scoreboards
Part number	`UPC-C`²³
Display	32-character LCD, 1/8 in digits²
Workout capacity	50 workouts; 30 sets per workout; 15 subsets per set¹
Repeat limit	99 per set¹
Displays driven	10, addressed by channel 1–10, `0` for 10¹
Dimensions	2.5 in H × 7.5 in L × 4.0 in W (6.4 × 19.1 × 10.2 cm)²
Weight	0.8 lb (0.36 kg)²
Power	One 9-volt battery, or 120 VAC through transformer `015-555`²
Auto power-off	Five minutes unused, when no display is attached¹
Data	RS-232, through the adapter cable to a CTS `DC` series data cable¹
Manufacture	Loveland, Colorado²

Part numbers and accessories¶

The manual lists what ships in the box.¹

Part	Number
Adapter cable, 7 ft	`0002-0437`
DB9 to RJ45 converter	`1004-0388`
RJ45 cable, 14 ft	`015-342`
AC power adapter	`015-555`
Data cable, 25 ft	`25DC`

Sources disagree on the cable supplied. The manual ships the 7 ft adapter cable and a separate 25 ft 25DC data cable, while the datasheet describes a 15 ft connector cable; nothing held reconciles the two.¹² Any DC series cable can stand in for the 25 ft one where a different length suits the deck better.¹

CTS still lists the controller on its pace clocks page, and a dealer quotes it at $595.62 with a 7 to 10 day lead time.⁸⁶ The company’s manuals index does not host F901, so the guide is not available from CTS to a current buyer.⁹

References¶

Colorado Time Systems, Pace Clock Controller User Guide (F901 Rev. 1007, ©2007). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴
Colorado Time Systems, Pace Clock Controller datasheet (Rev 04/14). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
Colorado Time Systems, Making Time Count: High Impact Visual Display Systems catalogue, product options list. ↩ ↩²
Colorado Time Systems, Pace Clock Controller User Guide (F901 Rev. 1007), Figure 3, keyboard layout. ↩ ↩²
Poolweb, Ultimate Pace Clock Controller (SKU 1151-UPC-C; price and lead time as of 2026). ↩ ↩²
Hy-Tek, TEAM MANAGER guide, Export Pace Clock (the pace clock feature is a product option for Team Manager). ↩
Colorado Time Systems, Pace Clocks and Shot Clocks. ↩
Colorado Time Systems, Manuals (pace clock guides F890, F891, F904, F910, F972 and F985; no F901 or F819). ↩

Last updated September 23, 2026.

Manufacturer	Colorado Time Systems
Part number	`UPC-C`
Type	Workout controller for pace clocks and scoreboards
Display	32-character LCD, 1/8 in digits
Capacity	50 workouts, 30 sets each, 15 subsets per set
Displays driven	Up to 10, addressed by channel
Dimensions	2.5 in H × 7.5 in L × 4.0 in W (6.4 × 19.1 × 10.2 cm)
Weight	0.8 lb (0.36 kg)
Power	One 9-volt battery, or 120 VAC through transformer `015-555`
Predecessor	Ultimate Pace Clock console
Manual	Pace Clock Controller User Guide (F901 Rev. 1007)