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2Timer Help

Practical guides for humans, with structure that is easy for AI systems to parse.

Chips

The Chips page links each timing chip to a bib number, so a read from a chip lands on the runner wearing it. You need it when your timing system sends chip IDs: ONETIME, IPICO, MYLAPS, ChronoTrack, Trident, Feibot, and Generic RFID. Systems that send bib numbers themselves, such as FinishLynx and Time Machine, don’t need chips.

Chips are for road races and cross country. Track and field meets have no Chips page.

Each row on Chips has a Chip ID, the value the chip sends, and a Bib #. When a read arrives with a chip ID, 2Timer looks up its bib, and the runner with that bib gets the read.

  • Changing chips relinks reads. Adding, editing, or loading chips links every read from those chips, including reads that already arrived, and results are recalculated.
  • Deleting a chip drops its reads from results. Its reads show No Bib again.
  • A bib nobody has yet still records. If a chip’s bib isn’t any athlete’s bib, the read is recorded on that bib and shows in results without a name. Give an athlete that bib on Athletes and the result links to them.
  • One runner can wear two chips. Two chips on the same bib, such as a backup transponder, are both kept.

Load chip assignments from a file

Use this when your chip vendor or reader software gives you a bib-to-chip list before race day.

  1. Open Chips and press Import from file…. At the Standard level you can also start from the Import page’s Chip assignments card.
  2. Choose the file: .csv, .txt, or .json.
  3. Press Next: Review.
  4. Review shows how many chips will be added, how many will move to a different bib, and how many are already the same. A chip that appears twice in the file is set aside and explained, and the first row for it wins.
  5. Press the import button. It says how many chip assignments it will change.

Nothing is saved until you press it. If the meet’s chips change while you are reviewing, the import stops and shows a fresh review.

Loading a corrected file again is often faster than fixing many rows by hand.

Add one chip

  1. Open Chips and press Quick Add.
  2. Enter the Chip ID and the Bib #.
  3. Press Add Chip.

If that chip is already on the page, its bib changes instead of a second row being added.

From the Reads page you can also press Assign Bib on a read whose chip has no bib. That adds the chip here.

Fix a chip that is on the wrong bib or mistyped

  1. Open Chips and search by chip ID or bib number.
  2. Click the Bib # in the chip’s row and type the right bib, or click the Chip ID to fix a typo.

Reads from that chip move to the new bib, and results update. On a phone the bib can be edited in the row, but the chip ID can’t: delete the chip and add it again with the right ID.

A read shows No Bib

No Bib on the Reads page means the read’s chip isn’t on Chips with a bib, and the read didn’t carry a bib itself. It happens with a test chip that was never loaded, a chip left out of the vendor’s file, or a chip a runner swapped on race morning.

  1. On Reads, press Assign Bib in the read’s row.
  2. Enter the bib and press Assign Bib.

Or add the chip on Chips with Quick Add, or load the corrected chip file. Every read from that chip links to the bib automatically.

Test chips before the race: what to expect

Cross a mat with a test chip and look at the read on Reads:

  • It should show the right marker and the bib you expect.
  • Before the race starts, it shows Before Start. That’s correct: a read before the race’s start never becomes a result.
  • No Bib means the chip isn’t loaded. No Marker means the connection has no Read Routing rule for that reader (see Markers and Reads).

The Athlete column is blank for a chip

The chip’s bib isn’t any athlete’s bib yet. Check the bib on Athletes. Reads from the chip are still recorded on the bib and link to the athlete once they have it.

A read went to the wrong runner

The chip is on the wrong bib. Fix the bib in the chip’s row on Chips. The read, and every other read from that chip, moves to the right runner.

Delete chips

Select the chips on Chips and press Delete. Reads from deleted chips drop out of results and show No Bib, until the chip is added again.

Chips: race-morning checklist

  • Every runner who is chip timed has a bib on Athletes.
  • Every chip in use is on Chips with its bib.
  • The Athlete column shows a name for every chip you expect.
  • Late bib or chip swaps are fixed on Chips before the gun.
  • Test reads show the right marker and bib, and no No Bib.

Metadata

  • Last Updated: 2026-10-12
  • Document Version: 0.2
  • Status: Active