All One Drop Side Effects, by Weight

Yo-Yo Mods and Maintenance
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I’m a huge One Drop fanboy and I love the Side Effects system! It not only prevents a huge class of permanent yo-yo damage by making the axle easily replaceable – it also allows you to adjust center weight and change the look, too! It’s genius, I tell you, geeeeenius! :bulb:

(Which is why it’s kinda surprising that this system hasn’t really been adopted by any other yo-yo manufacturer, outside of some footnotes that I’ve listed at the bottom of this post.)

Anyway! There’s an authoriative Side Effects page on One Drop’s website, of course, but I wanted it sorted by weight, with some of the older and legacy stuff sorted out.

So here’s that.

Modern Side Effects, by Weight

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Alu Brass
Ultra Light 2.5g 5.2g
Lego 2.7g 5.8g
MarkMont 2.9g 6.3g
Dome 3.0g 6.5g
Spike 3.2g 7.2g
Flat Cap 3.3g 7.7g
Energy Domes 3.5g 8.0g

As you can see, there’s only a 1 gram difference between the lightest and heaviest side effect options in aluminum. I’m also surprised that Flat Cap is the second heaviest option! If you’re looking for significant additional weight, go brass. Brass side effects are a little more than twice as heavy as their aluminum counterparts.

Legacy Side Effects, by Weight

Unless you have a fairly old One Drop you probably don’t have access to these, and they definitely aren’t being sold any more.

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Alu Brass
Sakura (2013) 2.9g
Dietz (2011) 3.0g 6.7g
Code1 (2011) 4.0g 9.5g
Anti-Yo 4.7g
Mini Disc 4.7g
Disc 7.2 g 7.4g (nickel plated)

Obsolete Side Effects

Now we’re into the … freaky, experimental stuff. Stunt pegs were quickly pulled as dangerous, which they likely were and are. RSMs are hubstacks which are apparently covered by patent… and you’ll note they are exceptionally heavy, quite a bit heavier than even the heaviest brass side effects. I’m not sure either of these side effects were ever formally released for sale in quantity?

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Alu
Stunt Pegs 4.0g
RSM (hubstacks) 11.2g

Non-One Drop yo-yos and Side Effects

The only non-One Drop yoyos that are compatible with Side Effects are

I get the impression that these were all yo-yos that were manufactured by One Drop.

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It just dawned on me, one floor on weight here is the metal axle. The side effects can never be too light because the steel metal axle has to be present, and steel is not light.

I weighed some axles on a cheap digital scale I had on hand, and I got:

  • steel axle – 0.6g ~ 0.7g
  • titanium axle – 0.4g ~ 0.5g

So by process of elimination, of the 2.5g minimum ultralight Side Effects weight, ~1.8g is the Aluminum part.

Of course titanium axle is totally a novelty, I only have one from the Evora Ti 7075. I didn’t even realize that YYE carried freakin’ magnesium axles as well as titanium :grin:

(And while we’re at it, bearings are ~2.0g)

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I didn’t realize the disc side effects (as seen on the Victory) were ever sold by yoyoexpert! I found this on Eternal Throw’s extremely-out-of-date website, though:

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I’m curious what the range is for flat, KK, CTX, and ceramic bearings. Stainless Steel is really dense.

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Because I am lazy I looked this up on Google rather than weighing the few sets of ceramics I have…

1.6g versus ~2.0g

More googling produces

To add a little known fact: fully ceramic bearings weigh almost 0.5 grams lighter than full steel. I haven’t weighed a hybrid (steel case, ceramic bearings).

which is consistent with the above. As noted above, you’d probably need it to be full ceramic (the ring as well as the ball bearings) to get that difference, of course. Not just ceramic balls in a steel ring.

Of course if we want to be real scientists we’d say “never believe what you haven’t measured yourself!” :wink:

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I managed to get a set of these

Which reminded me… you know how I love to weigh things, now that I have an accurate scale!

measured reported as
Ultralight 2.44g 2.5g
Lego 2.67g 2.7g
Dome 2.99g 3.0g
Markmont 2.81g 2.9g
Spike 3.04g, 3.03g, 3.04g, 3.03g 3.2g
Flat 3.32g 3.3g
Energy 3.38g, 3.35g 3.5g

Based on this data, I am pretty sure the spike and energy numbers OD has down for weight on their website are a little off. Spikes much closer to 3.0g not 3.2g, and Energy closer to 3.4g in reality.

How about brass? It’s heavy, yo!

measured reported as
Ultralight* 5.19g 5.2g
Flat 7.74g, 7.70g 7.7g
Markmont 6.33g, 6.34g, 6.26g 6.3g

What about our new exciting exotic?

Plastic dice stacks: 1.61g
RSMs: 10.50g (reported as 11.2g)

Maybe for the above they were combining the RSMs with the dice stacks in the weight, that’d be 12.11g total.

* oh the irony

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