Pace Clocks

[Heat One, Lane One]

I'm looking for pool side pace clocks that do not get ruined by condensation and general humidity. The ones we have at the moment are running 3 seconds slow each minute at best and sometimes go backwards (fast) for the entire 60.

Can anyone give me advice as to which pace clocks are less liable to ruin quickly please and also whether they think totally encasing them in wood and perspex would be a better idea.

Thank you

[Chris]

If it were my pool (and I wasn't personally footing the bill) I'd be going for one of the Speedo clocks .....

http://www.swimtecheartrateuk.com/pace_clock_2.htm

[Aussiebabe]

We use the Eyeline pace clocks. Don't seem to have to much problem, but hey this is Oz!! Might have to get your tools out and build your cabinet!!

[adamlelean]

The ones we have at the moment are running 3 seconds slow each minute at best
I'm sure there could be quite a good market for slow pace clocks.

On a more serious note we have one speedo and one JPL clock, the speedo one runs backwards for a bit and then speeds up. The JPL clock keeps reasonably good time once it's warmed up. I dread the sunday morning sessions where the coach asks for 3 200s at the same pace and then starts the clock. The clock runs at about 20 secs slower for the first 200, so the other 2 swims have to be faster to match the time.

[NotVeryFast]

I've never yet seen an analogue pace clock that doesn't visibly run at varying speeds all the time, you can usually see the second hand speeding up and slowing down all the time. I use a timex ironman watch instead.

But if any enterprising business person is reading this, I have a great idea for a commercial product:

A nice big digital clock with LED display (nice and bright and easily readable), large enough to be easily read from 2m away, say. In a waterproof housing, with the whole thing denser than water so it sinks to the bottom of the pool. You have 2 of these per lane, with perhaps the odd extra one to have on the poolside as well. The housing also has a reset button. At the start of the session, you have all of these on the poolside, and the coach says "3, 2, 1, go" and everyone pushes the reset button on a clock at the same time. The swimmers then take them and put them on the floor of the pool at both ends of each lane pointing towards the surface, but oriented so you can read the time from within a few metres of the end of the length. That way you have perfect pacing information every single length.

[Odie]

And with a lap counter alongside...

Excellent!

[HS Sports]

Not sure if it is what you are looking for but you could try one of Colorado Time Systems Pace Clocks - http://www.coloradotime.com/gallery1.htm

[Vincent]

Changing the subject slightly, does anyone know the technology used in touchpads, whether Colorado's or Omega's?

[swimstore]

Omega is just a tape switch that completes a circuit when pressed,

I'll let HS Sports answer the Colorado one as I don't fully understand what there doing.

[HS Sports]

The Colorado Pad has two wiremesh elements inside which are seperated by thin material. Each time the pad is touched the two elements connect and the pulse is sent to the timing system. The pad is also live on top - this covers the scenario when a swimmers hand comes down onto the touchpad.

[Wildswimmer]

A nice big digital clock with LED display (nice and bright and easily readable), large enough to be easily read from 2m away, say. In a waterproof housing, with the whole thing denser than water so it sinks to the bottom of the pool. You have 2 of these per lane, with perhaps the odd extra one to have on the poolside as well. The housing also has a reset button. At the start of the session, you have all of these on the poolside, and the coach says "3, 2, 1, go" and everyone pushes the reset button on a clock at the same time. The swimmers then take them and put them on the floor of the pool at both ends of each lane pointing towards the surface, but oriented so you can read the time from within a few metres of the end of the length. That way you have perfect pacing information every single length.

There are a few bijou problemettes but they're not insurmountable:

1.) LED displays are power-hungry, especially big ones, so you'd be looking at hefty batteries (under IEEE regs mains power is not allowed on poolside - only isolated low voltage or batteries). Heavy batteries would make the clocks sink well though. The much lower consumption LCD is probably a non-starter for underwater as in reflective mode refraction and random polarisation of the light in water would probably make them unusable. Transmissive mode with a backlight would work OK, but if you need to use power to light the display you might as well've used LEDs in the first place, particularly as the driving circuitry is far simpler.
2.) Water pressure increases rapidly with depth. The Otterbox that houses my iPod in the pool is made of very thick plastic but is "officially" rated for a max of 1m immersion. Back in the 1980s I was experimenting with underwater sound, and even the most robust cases I used (IP67) for my speakers were showing the strain after immersion in the deep end.
3.) If you are using several clocks technically they'd need to be synchronised, although with quartz controlled circuitry this would not be much of a problem.

If anyone's got a terminally duff clock, would they mind me having a go at fixing it? I might even be able to damp-proof the mechanism as well.

Wildswimmer Pete