bearing & mgicyoyo N6 question (MERGED)

I just purchased a magicyoyo N6 and have a questions. Magicyoyo is known for sometimes giving bad bearings, so how do i tell if i got a bad bearing?

You just can, in all honestly.
If it doesn’t spin well, or feels gritty etc.
If you feel like it is a bad bearing, that’s literally all you need! :slight_smile: its almost like, yoyoers intuition.

Yup.

If you think it’s not performing quite right, clean it out properly. It may take multiple methods to get it cleaned out. If it’s still not acting right, it’s bad.

It’s not limited to Magic. I’ve had bad YYF Spec bearings, YYJ bearings, even a couple of OD and a bad ceramic KK

how do you tell if a bearing is a bad bearing? is there a specific method?

Yup:

Step 1: install the bearing
Step 2: throw the yoyo
Step 3: if wacky and crappy things start happening, you have a bad bearing. If not, your bearing is fine.

Just being facetious. :wink: There’s no “great” way to tell if you have a truly bad bearing or if it just needs some love and attention. I would say that if you’ve given it your absolute best cleaning a few times and it’s still wacky and crappy, throw it out. Could you save it in 10 cleanings and miraculously uncrappifying whatever was crappy? Maybe. But in my experience that’s a waste of valuable time. Give it one or two best tries and if you don’t have luck, chuck it.

Not really. There’s multiple ways a bearing can be bad.

First, there could be bad parts. There could be mis-shaped balls in the bearing. There could be a bad cage. The bearing could be not actually round. There could also be a ball or two out of spec.

Most “bad bearings” just need a good cleaning to change from being “not so good” to being pretty good.

I start with playing the bearing. If the yoyo appears to have vibe, I will do the fingernail test. This takes my throw out of the equation. However, still having vibe doesn’t mean the bearing is bad, it could be the yoyo needs tuning. It could mean the bearing could use a cleaning.

Second, I test for repsonsiveness. Short spin times will make the bearing and yoyo be responsive. However, most of the time, cleaning fixes this problem.

Noisy bearings, but it’s not typical noise. You’re looking for irregular sounds that are not happening in a predictable pattern. However, this can just mean there is junk in the bearing that needs to come out through cleaning.

Since most of my suggestions suggest cleaning the bearing, it’s time to clean the bearing. Use both the paperslip method and regular solvent-based cleaning. If done properly, the bearing should be fully clean. Any issues now should be limited to the bearing. For now, I would suggest lightly lubing(1 pin drop, no more). The goal here is just to prevent galling, nothing more. Really, that’s all lube is for in string trick yoyos: preventing wear and galling. At least with a clean bearing, you’ve got a good starting point.

The flick test isn’t a definitive test. If you’re getting short spins(under 7 seconds), it’s best to just put it in the “bad bearing” pile and move on.

After that flick tests can show more or less if the bearing isn’t bad. Only play will determine if it truly is a bad bearing.

thanks everyone ;D