Best Maintenance free yoyo to give away to people

General Yo-Yo
1

I’m looking for a maintenance free yoyo, the perfect yoyo to give away, and for it to be responsive/reliable for around 20 hours of play or 1-2 months of inconsistent play. I’m starting to think this doesn’t exist.
Here all the yoyos I’ve tried:

YYF Arrow
YYE Snapback
Magicyoyo K2 Crystal
Varoius Magicyoyo Metal Responsives
YYF Whip
Duncan Butterfly XT
YYF spinstar
Duncan Dragonfly
Duncan Imperial
Duncan Butterfly

2 new yoyos I’m trying:
Yotricks Fizz
Yotricks Origen

My experience is running a club for 2 years, using yyf arrows t(1/2 spec C bearings), and the snapbacks (centertrack A bearing) from yoyoexpert as loaners for kids who don’t have a yoyo, or forgot theirs. I end up having to use a lot of thick lube (I’m on my 2nd bottle of yoyojam) to make both types of yoyos snappy to come back to the hand. Every other week a kid ends up playing with one that I missed, and struggles because the yoyo isn’t as responsive as they are used to. These are younger kids, so sometimes their ability to persevere with a semi unresponsive yoyo is just out of their wheelhouse.

End of the day, it seems like finding a consistent/reliable responsive yoyo would solve the frustration of this.
I thought a starburst response yoyo would work really well, but they have been just as inconsistent, honestly the snapbacks become more unresponsive and have lower intervals of being able to stay super responsive.

I haven’t tried grease, I’ve heard people use it for some responsive yoyos, should I try that? How long does it last?

I’m curious if there is a solution of string/lube/grease option that lasts for a long time that I could put in some of mine so that I can give them away to friends/people who are interested in yoyoing

Or, does anyone have a yoyo recommendation that just won’t quit?

Would love to hear what people think, or what people give away to other people.

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Honest thought, but it seems to me maybe you could just buy some traxxas grease and grease those bearings up. A yoyo that requires no upkeep does not exist. You do that and they should be pretty snappy.

If you just want something to come back to the hand, go grab a spinstar. Its a snapback without the bearing.

Everything else, just some grease will do… easy as pie. You cant run an honest yoyo club and not teach some maintenance anyway.

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I only started throwing last year but i got a yyf one and liked it more than the yyf arrow or duncan butterflys. Definitely played it for a month before i gave it to an older guy at my job one day. But always came back to my hand fine zero issues, always responsive bearing worked till i gave it away. Plus theyre only 13 bucks so pretty cheap.

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Recess First Base? I believe that’s what it was created for. Also, I have heard that if you contact them they can help you out with bulk order pricing too.

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Oh you also list some fixies in here. Those shouldn’t be giving you trouble, so im guessing you need new string for those.

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Ive used Vaseline and that worked for a while and packed the bearings in my fh1s with chapstick and that lasted a long long while. Also grab some super thick string like ot fat and the yoyos should stay responding for a long time.

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Most responsives that come out these days require maintenance to remain responsive. I have come to prefer grease far more than oil for response. I particularly use black moly grease. I dip a q-tip in and just dab it onto the bearings on one side of the bearing. It doesn’t even have to be packed in. Oil just doesn’t stick like grease does. I’ve been playing for maybe 1-1/2 years and I’ve not had to regrease any of my bearings yet.
I would also recommend much thicker string.

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My thoughts too. Get a butt ton of string and cheap Butterflies. Teach the kids about string tension and how to make a slipknot, and how to take strings on and off. Get a deep knot in one and show them how to get it out. Teach them about chapstick, and they’ll be set for years.

I got into yoyoing at 13 and only had a Butterfly. I played it for years. I’m not suggesting they don’t throw unresponsive, but if they get good with responsive and learn to brain twister and double or nothing on a Butterfly, the transition to unresponsive will be easy and they will have a much cleaner throw, precision and know all about staying on plane already.

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As others have suggested, getting thick string that you double wrap around the bearing/transaxle is probably the “lowest maintenance” way to make a throw more responsive short of going fixed axle. Unless, of course, you get them Yomega Brains, but where’s the fun in that :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m not going to replace the entire kit for the club, it’s just too much money, and the yo-yos function really well. Kids love finger spins, the arrow is a good fit for that.
I’m more interested in a combo of stuff for the purpose to give away a yoyo, knowing it would last for a really long time in the condition it was in.

I’m going to experiment with more axle wraps, and then grease. I appreciate the comments, if you guys (or anyone) come up with a long lasting combo of yoyo, string, lube/grease that stays responsive for a really long time, I would be really interested to hear it!

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I agree with the idea of this, because it teaches proper technique, but I decided against this when deciding what to buy for the club. Many kids come to the club with an unresponsive yo-yos, and it’s hard to convince kids to use fixed axles when they think the point is a long spintime.

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The maintenance part is important, but it’s low on my priority list. I teach it to the kids as it comes up with their personal yo-yos, but for the most part I try to keep kids throwing nonstop during my club. I try to make yo-yoing as approachable as possible, and I know that ultimately many kids will leave it behind, I just want a frustrating to use yoyo not to be the reason they leave it behind.

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Ironically, my kids all showed interest since my previous comment, and all wanted to play my unresponsives lol, so I understand

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Might be worth the DM to @Ardeus or @TryCatchThrow about a run of Strolls or Pixies

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whatever stock grease comes with fast eddy bearings is snappy af and lasts. don’t know how long it lasts as I’ve been playing one for several months and it hasn’t needed my attention so far. they sell both metal and rubber shielded

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I think maybe instead of low maintenance, you should consider low prices! I personally think that that magicyoyo K2 Crystal would probably be the way to go, due to the unresponsive bearing usually coming with the order of one.

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Fast Eddy has got it going on with the bearings.

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I give away Butterfly XTs. I buy them at Target. It’s great to wait for their buy one get one half off sales on boardgames, which includes yoyos.

They are not maintenance free, but the bearing is pretty packed with grease to give the beginner feel, and that tends to last a while.

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Probably not the answer you are looking for, but most of the yo-yos you are using are fine. I think that most kids will not stay interested in yo-yos, but the ones that get the bug will learn to deal with basic maintenance. The average kid won’t stay interested long enough to get past the basic learning process. Instead of trying to make your beginner yo-yos perfect, I would just focus on helping the kids that continue to show interest in playing.

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I agree with this 100%. My end conclusion is more of a teacher inspired thing of making sure I don’t have to spend as much time on the maintenance part during the club, or after a club, just because it’s a time consuming to do a forward pass on 30 yo-yos to check responsiveness. It’s a predictable problem, I’m just trying to solve it, because some days at the club out of the 20 kids that are using responsive yo-yos, I seem to take apart 3-5 every time and add lube. I change the string sometimes too, but that’s not as often.

My experience from teaching math is most of my time teaching, (and during club) I’m answering similar questions like “why is my answer wrong/I don’t get it/I’m missing something” (“why is my yoyo flipping over?”) and as I show them how to do it properly, they break the tip of their pencil (Yoyo is thrown properly, but then is slightly unresponsive)and the teaching/throwing stops because they can’t do anything until they sharpen their pencil. So, I always try to keep an extra pencil in my pocket so that we can keep going and not loose momentum. For club, I use a responsive yoyo that I can trade with them until I can put a drop of lube in the one they’re using.

The original thought is I’m just trying to minimize the “broken pencils” so that we can spend more time throwing. Also, I’m just curious what other people do, and if they give intentional thought to what yoyo they give away other than price. Price is so important to make it easy to justify buying something that I know will be a gift to someone, but in addition to that, I want the yoyo to last as a responsive. I just gave a friend a YYF whip with a thought that the the responsiveness will last longer than a Butterfly XT that I gave to another buddy, because on the whip the response pads stick out.