Hands-On Review: Core SWX HyperCore 98 and Volt Bridge

You may not have noticed it, but the folks over at Core SWX have been quietly busy making subtle upgrades to their batteries and battery technology, upgrades that yield some significant gains in consistency and usability. With the HyperCore series, whether it is the Gold, Green, or Red, no matter the capacity, all models use the same Lithium-ion battery cells. This helps control costs, and makes for consistent features and behavior across batteries. Is it significant? Yes, it is very significant, because the ability to implement the same features and functionality across different capacity batteries is pretty important. To test this, I took a turn at using the new HyperCore 98 Gold battery, and just to make things interesting, I also tested the Core SWX VoltBridge Technology.

Nomenclature

The 98 in the name refers to the watt-hour rating, and sicne it is less than 100, that means you can take the battery with you on airplanes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to fly with it, but the Travel Safe sticker on the battery should help you get past the TSA—these are not the droids you are looking for. 

As far as the color scheme, Gold signifies Gold-mount, Green signifies V-mount, and Red signifies RED cameras, because the RED Scarlett and the Epic follow different protocols for displaying the info in the viewfinders. You can use a Core SWX Green battery to power a Scarlet or Epic, and it will power your camera just fine. It just won’t display all the detailed info in the viewfinder. Apparently, the newer DSMC2 line of RED cameras doesn’t suffer from that peculiarity, so you can use Red, Green, or Gold batteries and get the full battery display in the viewfinder.

Improvements

Now that we’ve dispensed with the introductions, let’s get to the batteries. The first thing I noticed is that the newer HyperCore batteries have a backlit white screen. Yes, it is a big deal, because it is easier to read than the older greenish backlight. You activate the backlight by holding down the little LED activation button, and it stays lit as long as you hold the button down.

I would prefer to press and release the button and have the screen stay illuminated for three to five seconds, rather than have the backlight turn off as soon as I let go, but that is really my biggest complaint about the battery. It is worth noting that the LED activation switch is under the skin of the battery case, so there are no worries about dirt or water entering there. The battery itself is pretty well sealed, and the D-Tap and the USB port are on the side. Still, I wouldn’t want to go out in the weather without a proper rain cover on my gear.

Beyond just being brighter, the display features the standard battery gauge, plus a percentage readout, and a run time display that took me some getting used to. The battery always displays how much run time remains in hours and minutes, even when it is not connected to a camera. How does that work? Simple: when the battery is not connected to anything, it displays the remaining run time based on a 30-watt draw. As soon as you put a load on the battery, either through the USB or the D-Tap or by connecting it to a camera/light, the battery will recalculate the time remaining based on the new power draw. I ran a camera, onboard monitor, and USB-powered, on-camera light with the HyperCore 98, and the run time meter was right on the money. It takes a few glances to familiarize yourself with this feature, especially since it changes when you add or remove accessories, but it soon becomes second nature. Plus, there is a standard push-button fuel gauge on the side.

Storage

One other thing about the new HyperCore batteries is that they feature a new manual “storage” mode. Similar to the sleep mode into which the batteries can enter when untouched for 48 hours, the storage mode can reduce self-discharge and greatly extend the life of your battery, since letting a Li-ion battery fully discharge can lead to shortened lifetime, and lower charge capacities. I found out about storage mode quite by accident when I held down the LED button for an extended period of time, and the display went blank. The USB also stopped working, and I thought I had damaged the battery.

Nevertheless, you learn something new every day, and on that day I learned about the storage function. It did take holding down the LED button for 10 seconds to activate storage mode, and to wake the battery out of it, you just hold the LED button down for another 10 seconds. The storage mode was originally developed as a way to comply with cargo-air restrictions that require batteries to be no more than 30% charged when shipped. This does not apply to batteries you take with you on airplanes, because those can be fully charged. However, if a battery is in a warehouse for a few months waiting to be shipped, and it can only be at a 30% maximum charge, the batteries can discharge down to zero, which as mentioned, can cause problems. So engaging the storage mode slows the discharge.

While it is unlikely you will be shipping batteries by cargo, charging the batteries and then taking them off the charger and putting them in storage mode is a better solution than leaving your batteries on a charger to keep them topped off. In storage mode, they’ll drain about 5% a month, so if you are down for a week, that’s a week less you are running your charger, wasting power, and wearing it out.  

VoltBridge

Available as either a D-Tap accessory plug, or integrated into an AB Gold or V-mount plate, VoltBridge is a Bluetooth system that works with a free app on your iOS or Android phone/tablet. The D-Tap plug only delivers voltage information, which you can view on your iOS/Android device and you don’t have to read it directly from the battery’s info screen, because you can be as far away as the Bluetooth will allow. However, the VoltBridge system built into the battery plate features more functionality. It allows you to name the plate/VoltBridg device (e.g., Camera 1, Camera 2, etc.) and it will relay not only the voltage and percent remaining but also the remaining run time and battery capacity.

It will also display the battery’s serial number, how many charge/discharge cycles it has undergone and its temperature (in Celsius). This allows you to check the status of your battery at a glance, and to see how it is faring over time. What is even better is that you can set the app to send a warning to your phone when a battery reaches a certain voltage, percent, or remaining run time, all by Bluetooth.

The app can share information from up to 25 different VoltBridge plates/plugs at the same time, so it is great for managing multiple cameras or light setups. Just imagine sending a battery to your cameraman before they call for it, or swapping out batteries from lights hanging in a grid so they don’t fail during a take. Who is the hero now? Core SWX HyperCore batteries and VoltBridge, that’s who.