Scoreboards

From Libre Aquatics Wiki, the free aquatics reference

A scoreboard, or display board, is the board that shows a competition’s times, places, scores and event information to the athletes and the spectators. It displays what another device has already measured: a timing console runs the race and sends the result to the board, and on a matrix or video board a computer running display software decides where each value appears. Colorado Time Systems, whose boards this section covers so far, has built three kinds: numeric boards of fixed seven-segment digits, matrix boards of addressable pixels, and LED video displays driven as a video output.¹²³

Numeric boards¶

A numeric board is built from display modules, each one line of eight seven-segment digits carrying seven decimal points and a colon, behind a weathershield with a non-glare face. Modules combine: they stack vertically up to thirteen units, mount flat or in a corner, and can sit side by side, so a board’s line count is an ordering decision rather than a fixed product.¹⁴ CTS offers the digits in two forms. LED digits, the LED-R line, are 10.1 inches (25.7 cm) high in red, green, amber or blue, and are the current product; that article carries the line configurations, module codes and mounting detail. Light-reflective digits are 9 inches (22.9 cm) high and fluorescent yellow, and emit nothing: each segment is a mechanical part that turns to show its face or its edge, which is why the service instructions cover replacing segment base clips and bearings rather than lamps.¹⁴

The modules are specified for the pool environment, rated 0–50 °C at up to 90% relative humidity (non-condensing) and up to 3000 m altitude. A line draws under 1 A and runs on 115 VAC ±10% at 50–60 Hz in the United States or 230 VAC ±10% elsewhere; CTS requires the circuit not be shared with other equipment, because the board is sensitive to electrical noise on the supply. Data reaches the board over an RS-232 scoreboard port, and the permanent data cable is ordered by length, in 100, 150 or 200 foot runs.¹⁴ A numeric board is not limited to one sport: the same modules show swimming, diving, water polo, artistic swimming and track information, and with the pace clock program on a CTS console the board becomes a pace clock or a time-of-day clock.¹⁴

The cable can be replaced by a radio link, through a wireless adapter at each end or, on a board with its own receiver, by one adapter at the console. The adapters and the other hardware that feeds a board are covered on the scoreboard control overview.⁵⁶⁷

Later numeric boards take their data by radio rather than over a cable. CTS launched the Otter line around 2015 in swimming, diving and water polo versions, with 2.4 GHz reception, antennas inside the case, 5 inch digits, a coating on the digits and circuit boards to resist corrosion, and brightness that follows the light in the room. A swimming board pairs with a System 6 wireless adapter or a Dolphin; a water polo board can also be run on a cable from a System 6.⁸ Smaller installations use the compact mini LED scoreboard, a two-line board sold in portable and fixed forms.⁹

Matrix boards¶

A matrix board replaces fixed digits with a grid of addressable pixels, so the same surface can show text in any arrangement, graphics and animation as well as timing data. CTS built this generation as the Myriad and Mercury16 lines, and drove them from a dedicated computer running DisplayLink, which is where a board’s content was composed.²¹⁰¹¹

The construction is modular in both power and data. The viewable surface is an array of 8×8 pixel modules, called 8x8s, held in module boxes; each row of the board has a row controller and an Ethernet card, and ribbon cables carry data from the row controller through the 8x8s in that row in turn. Coaxial cable runs from the display computer to a wall plate and on to the first Ethernet card, using BNC connectors with a T and a terminator at the computer, and short lengths of the same cable link one row’s Ethernet card to the next. Each module box holds its own power supply, and power reaches the row controllers, 8x8s, fans and resistors through Y adapters. A module line draws 2 A per box, with a maximum of four boxes across before another circuit is required; CTS’s rule of thumb is one dedicated 20 A duplex per block of two rows and four columns.²

Video displays¶

CTS’s current displays are LED video walls, driven as a video output rather than over a data port: the display software renders a frame on the computer’s monitor and a controller between the computer and the board turns that video signal into panel data. The link from the computer to the controller is a video cable, most often HDMI to DVI, and the controllers CTS has shipped are covered on the scoreboard control overview.³¹²

Governing-body requirements¶

World Aquatics facilities rules treat a spectator readout board as an essential accessory of a minimum automatic officiating installation, alongside the printout, relay take-off judging, the automatic lap counter and the readout of splits.¹³ At the Olympic Games and World Championships the rules also set the board’s size: at least twelve lines of thirty-two characters, each character at least 360 mm high, on a board no smaller than 7.5 m wide by 4.5 m high. A line-matrix board of that class must scroll its lines up or down and blink them; a full-matrix board must be programmable and able to show animation.¹³ The artistic swimming rules set a lower floor, a scoreboard of at least ten lines of thirty-two digits, able to show every recorded value and the running time, unless the board already meets the Olympic specification.¹³

One rule constrains where a board may go. Electronic readout boards are permitted under the starting blocks, but they may not flash, and their figures must hold still during a backstroke start.¹³

Products¶

CTS’s current aquatic scoreboards are the Otter boards, the mini LED scoreboard and the LED-R numeric line, each with its own guide on the company’s manuals index; the Myriad and Mercury16 matrix displays below are out of production and have no entry on that index, though CTS does still publish a troubleshooting page covering the two lines.¹⁴¹⁵

This section catalogs the display hardware named in the articles on this wiki. The LED-R module, the mini LED scoreboard and the Otter boards and the Myriad have had research passes of their own; the rest are stubs, written from what a manual or catalogue says in passing while another article was being researched.

Product	Maker	Type	Status
Otter	Colorado Time Systems	Wireless LED numeric scoreboards for swimming, diving and water polo	Current
LED-R	Colorado Time Systems	Single-line LED numeric scoreboard module	Current
LED-REX	Colorado Time Systems	LED retrofit for a light-reflective board	Attested 2011
Mini LED scoreboard	Colorado Time Systems	Compact two-line numeric board, portable or fixed	Current; the 2026 datasheet lists portable models only
Mini scoreboard caddy	Colorado Time Systems	Wheeled frame for four or five modules	Documented
Myriad	Colorado Time Systems	Two-color LED matrix display, 256 shades	Announced 1997; discontinued
HWPM 110 and HWPM 220	Colorado Time Systems	Optional matrix-display parts, purpose unestablished	Named in the 2000 manual
Multisport portable scoreboard	Colorado Time Systems	Wheeled game-time and score board, `MS-` family	Attested 2015
Mercury16	Colorado Time Systems	Indoor LED matrix display, with outdoor and Sun Series variants	Attested 1996; discontinued

The adapters, controllers and video processors that feed these boards are listed on the scoreboard control overview.

References¶

Colorado Time Systems, LED and Light Reflective Scoreboards datasheet (Rev. 08/12), specifications table. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Colorado Time Systems, Myriad/Mercury16 Display Manual (F853 Rev. 0100), sections 1 and 2. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Colorado Time Systems, DisplayLink Video to Broadcast Software Instructions (F1062) (Rev. 202104). ↩ ↩²
Colorado Time Systems, Single and Multi-line Scoreboard Display Modules Installation Guide (F218 Rev. 201705). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Colorado Time Systems, Sky-Fi Wireless Adapter (WA-1) User Instructions. ↩
Colorado Time Systems, 2.4 GHz Wireless Scoreboard Adapter datasheet (Rev. 04/19), specifications. ↩
Colorado Time Systems, 2.4 GHz Wireless Adapter WA-3 User Guide (F1045). ↩
Colorado Time Systems, Complete Timing, Scoring, Training and Display Solutions catalogue (2015), Numeric Scoreboards section. ↩
Colorado Time Systems, Mini LED Scoreboard datasheet (Rev. 03/14). ↩
Colorado Time Systems, DisplayLink 3.6 Users Guide, for Myriad and Mercury Matrix Display Systems (F837 Rev. 0404). ↩
Colorado Time Systems, DisplayLink 3.7 Users Guide (F888 Rev. 0404). ↩
Colorado Time Systems, A Guide to Live Streaming with DisplayLink+. ↩
World Aquatics, Facilities Rules 2021–2025, FR 2.1.8, FR 2.3.6.2, FR 2.3.7.1 and FR 5.3.6. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Colorado Time Systems, Manuals (no entry for Myriad, Mercury or the DisplayLink user guides). ↩
Colorado Time Systems, Mercury & Myriad Troubleshooting Guide. ↩

Last updated September 25, 2026.