A few days ago I noticed some small cracks had started on 4 corners of my 204 5k+ headset.
Now I just looked at them and one crack has spread almost 25% across the front.
Also looking at the front the entire front is now distorted, it looks almost like heat warping. But around the chevron there is a regular pattern of slightly raised triangles that I have not noticed previously.
Based on this I expect the entire front panel will eventually fail.
I’m wondering if these parts will be made available as replacements and if so hopefully a more durable version? Or does anyone have any suggestion as a repair?
I think it is important I point out I purchased my headset second hand, opened but never used. Then after buying it I also was not able to use it until 5700XT support was provided so the headset has only been used for just over a month since the 18th of December and prior to this it had only been tested briefly with an Nvidia card to ensure it worked. When I first purchased it even though the main box had been opened it was still packaged as it left the factory so the previous owner had only opened it to inspect it but never taken the contents out. It is very disappointing it is already cracking so bad.
At this point I’m just looking for advice on how to either replace the panel if that is possible or repair the headset so I can continue using it as long as possible and hopefully still be able to sell it when it comes time to upgrade?
Generally speaking, I guess pretty much everything is possible.
Not sure if they sell those housing parts if you’re thinking of DIY fixing it. @PimaxQuorra
Thanks Helio
What would be really great, would be to know from what version number of the 5K+ that the housing had been improved and the new optical allignment of the panels was introduced.
My manufacture date from my serial is 919 so the 19th week of 2019 or early May. I have now since found that other crack thread and read thought it. I had no idea how serious the issue was. I thought just a few people were getting small cracks. I had no idea how many or how bad they get.
After reading through that thread I am concerned. It seems from it there is no fix. It seems people who have received improved casings have still experienced cracking. It seems the same people have experienced cracking multiple times. My best guess is the headsets are used differently. Perhaps the plastics are affected by temperature and longer periods of use is more likely to result in a cracked housing. I sim race for many hours. Recently when I did the 24 hour race my headset remained on for the entire race so more than 24 hours of continuous use. That is my first ever 24 hour race but I am doing a 12 hour in a couple of weeks. Normally however the headset gets used continuously for a few hours at a time and I have noticed it gets hot.
I was hoping I could obtain replacement parts or that there would be some recommendation for some type of film that could be applied over the headset. After reading through the thread I am now aware that applying a film may interfere with sensor function however looking at the silicon cover it would seem that a film could be produced with the same cutouts. In my situation there are 2 minor cracks approximately in sensor locations and one of these seems like it would not be able to be covered. The largest crack however does not have any sensors.
If I covered it my main concerns would then be resale value and potentially worsening the issue of heat build up.
I considered a professionally cut wrap as a customisation could contain the cracking and add some personalisation which should not harm the value of the headset. In the least a wrap would prevent chunks of the housing breaking away as I witnessed in the cracking thread.
This now has me concerned about purchasing the 8KX. I have been strongly considering an 8KX purchase recently but now I’m hesitant and wish to see if they also have similar issues. Perhaps the changes in their housing are enough to prevent it but I want to be sure.
For me I consider these headsets an expensive purchase and I’d like to be able to resell my headsets when I upgrade. This cracking issue changes my perspective considerably. Considering an 8KX is roughly a $2000 purchase in Australia, what’s a cracked 2nd hand 8KX worth? My 5k+ started cracking with less than a month of use and now after just a little over one month of use has a crack 8cm long.
I wonder if can buy a replacement part if it is best to not replace it until I go to sell it considering it may crack again just a few weeks later?
EDIT: Something I considered soon after I started reading that other thread. Perhaps the reason my headset was unused when I purchased it was that the previous owner had it repaired and decided to sell it when he got it back??? I think after reading the thread there is a need for something like a wrap for at least these original style headsets. Does anyone know if there is a plan online for cutting a wrap? I’m not a fan of that 3d printed cover, it does not look good IMO.
With the date I was just going off what I read in the other thread, that the 7th number in the serial number represents the year of manufacture and the 8th and 9th numbers represent the month of manufacture. The 7th, 8th and 9th numbers of my serial number are 919
I can confirm from my perspective amount of use had little bearing on the cracks I experienced on all 4 of the HMD’s I had. My assumption is weaknesses already in some of them may eventually crack and I suspect just as you’ve said that internal heat is a large factor for them to eventually give… but who knows.
My 2nd HMD took 2 weeks of barely being used and sat on my desk to crack, 4th one had an out of box screen fault and literally within the 1h following initial power up to calling it a day I noticed it had a crack (and I had inspected it 1h before with 0 cracks). It’s just a lottery on the earlier housing.
I’ve no idea how well the later ones are doing that are supposed to have the improvements made again from around September onwards, but I’ve not seen much feedback on those so at least gives hope they may have is mostly under control now?
I have submitted a ticket for cracks recently, on a 5K+ that I received in March of 2019, so within the 1 year warranty still. In the ticket I asked for a compensation coupon because I had heard that others with a legit issue like mine (pics included in ticket) had successfully done the same in the past. My serial is 203 and it started cracking within 2 weeks of receiving. I’m wondering what others have received as a coupon amount?..was it the usual $100 offering by Pimax? I’m disapointed that backers received a headset that was half baked developmentally, as we now see in the latest “Vision” series most production deficiencies have been successfully resolved, but, it is what it is and at this point just trying to get some sort of compensation for the subpar materials/manufacturing process without the predictable horror scenario of RMA with same cracked results on 2nd or 3rd HMD, like others report here.
We are apologize on the cracking issues, can you drop us a PM with photo on your cracking 5K+? We will forward it to the team and check what’s happening on the housing.
