touch pads

Touch pads are Evil. There should be a different category of records for swim meets that use pads as they reduce the length of the event by approximately .005 yards (or .0044 meters) for every length. That's just absurd. With touch pads it shouldn't be advertised as a 100m SCM Freestyle, it should be 99.9824m. Bah. Oh look here come the nice men in the white coats.... We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. :bouncing: Paul

No it's not. :-) I swam a meet last weekend the must have missed the touchpads a few times as a few splits were missed in both my 500 and 1650. I think hit the outer frame a few times (yes, I probably flip turn a bit too deep). Agree, all you have to do is flip a little deep with your feet angled slightly down and VOILA you miss the pad. Paul

Jayhawk: JOKING!!!! Paul

Colorado Timing has photos and diagrams of touch pads at their web site: www.colotime.com/.../Touchpad standard.pdf I see they're quite large and advertised to have no dead spots. Does anyone have any idea how much they cost? Just curious.

Touch pad location varies depending on the pool design. The typical high end pool has a gutter flush with the top of the water and the pad is also flush with the water. On other pools - with a flat wall - the pad can be several inches above the water depending on the bracket design that holds them to the wall. Most pads are not slippery. Like others said - I find they have better traction than tiles. The touch is missed sometimes in backstroke, and fly/*** when the swimmer touches the lip of the pool (if present) above the pad. But the plunger or backup timer exists for this purpose. The timing system knows how many touches are expected and will notify the operator when a touch was missed. The operator will manually enter a touch which doesn't affect the final time but at least one of the splits will be wrong. Colorado and Omega are the leading manufacturers. I think they start at $10,000 or so and go up depending on how many pads (6-8 lanes), scoreboard, etc.

Touch pads are Evil. There should be a different category of records for swim meets that use pads as they reduce the length of the event by approximately .005 yards (or .0044 meters) for every length. That's just absurd. With touch pads it shouldn't be advertised as a 100m SCM Freestyle, it should be 99.9824m. Bah. Wrong... As part of hosting a sanctioned meet, USMS requires that the pool length be measured. The thickness of the touch pads must be taken into account. If the touch pads are in place, a 25M pool must measure a minimum of 25 meters from touch pad to wall. If the touch pads are not in place when the pool is measured, the pool must measure at least as much longer as the thickness of the pads. I have measured many of the pools in our LMSC over the last several years. None of them have come up short, or even close to it. In fact, I've been surprised at how "long" many pools are (as much as a couple of inches, in one case). Anna Lea

Agree, all you have to do is flip a little deep with your feet angled slightly down and VOILA you miss the pad. Paul Disagree. Two feet is more than a "little" deep. How the heck to you get you legs that far under water when you're swimming at the surface? In any event, you may have a problem with your split times on turns but it is pretty darn hard to miss that pad on your finish. Just remember to finish by touching the wall and not grabbing the gutter... And given that there's always gonna be backup timers, don't even sweat it. (Though amazingly they don't appear to have backup timers at the Olympics.) You will get a time!

Just as a rough ballpark starting point, touchpads run around $1000 each. Plus or minus. Depends on the size of the pad, how many you're buying, what your discount setup is, etc. (Let's put it this way... pools like Indy and other high profile pools are going to pay less for their equipment, because the manufacturers want to see their equipment used at that pool. It's advertising.) Now, more and more, relay takeoff pads are being used more and more. Those are also around $1000 each, +/-. And as others have said... doesn't make the pool illegal. Most pools are built to allow touchpads at both ends... so if you have touchpads at only one end, you're swimming "too far". :-) -Rick

Colorado and Omega are the leading manufacturers. ... and Daktronics. They're making a pretty solid move into the aquatics timing areas. (They have been an industry leader in video/matrix display systems for some time.) -Rick

Just as a rough ballpark starting point, touchpads run around $1000 each. Plus or minus. Depends on the size of the pad, how many you're buying, what your discount setup is, etc. (Let's put it this way... pools like Indy and other high profile pools are going to pay less for their equipment, because the manufacturers want to see their equipment used at that pool. It's advertising.) Now, more and more, relay takeoff pads are being used more and more. Those are also around $1000 each, +/-. And as others have said... doesn't make the pool illegal. Most pools are built to allow touchpads at both ends... so if you have touchpads at only one end, you're swimming "too far". :-) -Rick I think the Colorado timing console costs ~$5000 by itself. I found a price sheet for various Colorado pieces at the place below: www.walterswim.com/2006_p55.pdf A pool would need the console, the starting system, at least one pad per lane (probably a spare too), and cables.