Seiko PS-109 Electronic Starter

The Seiko PS-109 is a discontinued portable electronic starter made by Seiko Time Systems Inc. of Tokyo, the third documented member of the company’s エレクトロニックスタータ line. It kept the pistol and headset of the PS-107 unchanged and replaced the speaker box, moving the whole system onto a single cell size and introducing the taller off-white enclosure that the PS-110 went on to use.¹² Like every unit in this line it is general sports equipment rather than swimming-specific. Seiko lists it under multi-timing rather than swimming and publishes no governing-body certification for it, where its poolside PS-1200 generator of the same period was listed as conforming to FINA rules and certified by the Japan Swimming Federation.³⁴ This article is a starting point; the start-systems overview covers the shared background that applies to every starter.

Models and naming¶

Seiko manufactured the PS-109 from 2002 to 2008.³ The company does not publish a parts-support end date for it; its general policy is that repair and parts supply for a discontinued product run, as a rule, for seven years from the end of production.⁵ It replaced the PS-107 and was replaced by the PS-110, covered in the Seiko Electronic Starting System article.

The system shipped as the starter pistol PS-77, the headset microphone PS-60, the speaker box PS-55 and a 5 m cable with box, PS-80, with twelve AA cells, the manual and a warranty card.¹ The manual is Japanese only and carries the document number R-I3001. Seiko’s document numbers do not run in model order: the PS-109 manual is R-I3001 while the earlier PS-105 and PS-107 manuals are R-I3002 and R-I3003, so they cannot be used to infer which was published first.

Design and hardware¶

The pistol and the headset microphone are the same parts as the PS-107 and carry identical published specifications.¹ The pistol is moulded ABS in dark grey, 207 W × 153 D × 38 H mm, about 250 g without batteries or cable, on two lines of two AA cells, with a xenon strobe.

The change is the speaker box. The PS-55 replaced the ivory PS-50 with an off-white ABS enclosure of 102 W × 216 D × 258 H mm weighing about 1.6 kg without cells, and moved from four C cells at 6 V to eight AA cells at 12 V.¹ That put the whole system on one cell size: twelve AA cells in total, four for the pistol and eight for the speaker box, where the PS-105 and PS-107 had needed both AA and C cells.

The PS-55 is also the enclosure Seiko carried forward. The PS-56 supplied with the later PS-110 quotes the same dimensions and the same 1.6 kg weight.¹²

The manual adds a tripod note that the two earlier manuals do not: the speaker box has an M8 tripod socket, and Seiko suggests, for reference, a tripod whose legs describe a circle 1,300 mm across when opened and whose stand height is 1,000–1,600 mm.¹

Operation¶

The PS-109 offers two start sounds, selected on the pistol’s power switch. At its centre position the unit produces an electronic beep with the strobe flash and the start signal; at the ON position it produces a simulated pistol shot with the same flash and signal.¹

A separate whistle switch on the speaker box sounds a whistle at a fixed, loud level that the volume control does not affect, which Seiko warns to bear in mind when operating it.¹ The manual also warns that the headset microphone must be plugged into the pistol and not directly into the speaker box, or no audio will be produced.¹

Audio¶

The speaker box is rated at 6 W with a maximum of 10 W and a practical sound pressure level of 93 dB at 10 m, with an audio input of -20 dB into 100 kΩ. The pistol takes its microphone input at -50 db, produces the simulated pistol sound at -18 db, and passes microphone audio at up to -5 db at full volume.¹

Seiko states that the speaker box can be used on its own, in multiples, or connected to other equipment, but the manual sets no limit on the number of boxes and gives no maximum total cable length; the supplied cable is 5 m. It does treat cable length as a fault condition, listing a long, high-resistance cable among the causes of a start signal failing to appear.¹ The ten-box and 20 m limits appear only in the later PS-110 manual.²

Against manganese cells the manual gives the speaker box about 3,000 pistol sounds, measured until the sound pressure falls below 91 dB at 10 m, and the pistol’s strobe about 480 flashes at one-minute intervals.¹ The PS-56 that followed is rated at about 8,000 sounds on alkaline cells, so the figures are not directly comparable.²

Connections¶

The start signal is a Photo-MOS relay output with an on-resistance of 10 Ω or less, rated for a load of no more than 100 V AC or DC and no more than 0.1 A. It appears between pins 1 and 3 of a Hoshiden TCS0250-01-0301 connector, with TCP0556-01-0201 as the mating cable-side part, and the signal duration is essentially the same as the duration of the electronic sound.¹ This is unchanged from the PS-107.

Specifications¶

Starter pistol (PS-77):

Power	DC 3 V (2 × AA cells) × 2 lines
Strobe	Xenon lamp
Strobe life	Approx. 480 flashes (manganese cells)
Audio battery life	Approx. 125 hours (continuous use at normal temperature)
Start signal	Photo-MOS relay, 10 Ω or less; AC/DC 100 V, 0.1 A maximum
Microphone input	-50 db
Simulated pistol sound	-18 db
Microphone audio at full volume	-5 db
Current draw	Max. 50 mA or less (audio); max. approx. 3 A (strobe)
Enclosure	ABS resin, dark grey
Dimensions	207 W × 153 D × 38 H mm
Weight	Approx. 250 g (excluding cells and cable)
Operating temperature	-10 to +50 °C
Storage temperature	-15 to +60 °C

Speaker box (PS-55):

Power	12 V (8 × AA cells)
Current draw	Approx. 3 A on pistol sound; approx. 150 mA silent
Battery life	Approx. 3,000 pistol sounds (manganese cells)
Audio input	-20 dB (100 kΩ)
Rated output	6 W (10 W maximum)
Sound pressure	93 dB at 10 m
Enclosure	ABS resin, off-white
Dimensions	102 W × 216 D × 258 H mm
Weight	Approx. 1.6 kg (excluding cells)
Operating temperature	-5 to 40 °C
Storage temperature	-15 to 50 °C

Headset microphone (PS-60):

Type	Condenser microphone
Output impedance	1.6 kΩ ±30%
Sensitivity	-68 dB ±3 dB
Dimensions	160 W × 170 D × 68 H mm
Weight	Approx. 45 g (including cable)

The manual makes no statement about weather protection, and names no other Seiko equipment.

See also¶

• Seiko PS-107 Electronic Starter: the predecessor
• Seiko Electronic Starting System: the PS-110 that succeeded it, and the current PS-110J
• Start systems: the start-system overview and governing-body requirements
• Seiko: the manufacturer
• Equipment: the wider equipment reference

References¶

Footnotes¶

1. Seiko Time Systems, エレクトロニックスタータ PS-109 取扱説明書 (document R-I3001, Japanese). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. Seiko Time Creation, Electronic Starting System PS-110 Operating Manual (PS-56 dimensions, weight and battery life). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Seiko Time Creation, discontinued multi-timing products (製造時期 2002年～2008年). ↩ ↩²

4. Internet Archive, Seiko swimming products index, 18 April 2009 snapshot (the PS-1200’s FINA and Japan Swimming Federation certification lines). ↩

5. Seiko Time Creation, discontinued products (repair and parts supply run, as a rule, for seven years from the end of production). ↩