I bought a Fast Charger with a usb-c and usb-a port to connect the Crystal usb cable directly to instead of to the hub. The usb-c port can supply upto 65 watts but the usb-a is limited to 18 watts.
Other users have done this and find the headset battery never needs charging. I have the thicker headset usb cable now connected directly to my motherboard and the other thinner usb cable connected directly to the powered charger, however it is depleting as I use it and not staying charged.
I am thinking it may be that the usb-a port power supply of 18 watts is not enough ? So if I used a usb-c to usb-a convertor and plugged the headset usb-a cable into that would that then be sufficient power to keep the headset fully charged as others have reported ?
Does anyone here have any experience with this ? Thanks
Ok so I am answering my own question here because I listed the same topic over on the pimax reddit forum and had some great replies. The following is the result of the testing I did.
I did some testing yesterday with really good & interesting results.
TEST ONE :-
I connected the Pimax usb 2 cable direct to the usb-a port on my 65w charger and left the Crystal usb 3 cable connected to the powered on Pimax usb charger. I then went sim racing on the Crystal for nearly 3 hours. I left eye tracking on to observe the effect. The battery depleted one to two bars (4th bar flashing when charging) I then turned eye tracking off and raced another 2 hours and the battery was down to about half with the 3rd bar flashing. So that was a huge improvement from only having the pimax usb hub connected and extended the time I could race in a day. Practically this is likely all I need to avoid changing batteries as I can let it recharge when my racing is finished.
TEST TWO :-
I left the usb 3 cable connected to the powered on Pimax usb hub and unplugged the Pimax usb 2 cable from the charger. I then connected a usb-c to usb-c 100watt cable from the 65w charger to the right side usb-c port on the Crystal. In this configuration I then raced about 3 hours and was astonished to find at the end that whilst racing in VR on the Crystal it remained powered and also the battery had fully recharged to 5 bars. Now I think that once the battery is fully recharged, I can leave the pimax powered hub turned off, awesome ! I was not keen to have an extra cable while racing however in use it was no problem as the 3 metre cable has a soft braiding cover that bends easily and I can track it around the back of my headset into the plastic holder that the main cable is fixed to and run it alongside the main cable back to the charger. With this solution there is no need to ever swap batteries. The configuration in Test One is also viable for shorter racing/flying sessions, so I will use both depending on the time I will spend in VR.
For those interested here are links to the charger & cable I am using purchased from Amazon Australia though there are others suitable. The charger is not the most expensive but nor is it the cheapest and it feels solid and well made. The cable I feel should be of high quality and 100watt rated to avoid problems.