Ceramic Bearing Help

I got a Civility yo-yo and it came with a ceramic VIP ultimate bearing but it played responsive out of the box so they sent me a new ceramic VIP ultimate bearing and this one has been working for a few months but recently it started doing the same thing as the old one I tried lubing and cleaning them multiple times and they are still playing responsive. What should I do?

Maybe try not lubing it. I’ve heard a lot of people suggest no lube on bearings especially ceramic. Also, is your throw environment particularly dusty or anything? Ours is pretty dusty, but hasn’t jammed up any bearing I can remember.

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I have cleaned it and then not lubed it and it did the same thing. My house might be a little dusty but nothing over the top

Has this only happened to this yo/bearing? Maybe just swap the string and use a regular bearing. Some people also have said that ceramic always goes responsive on them eventually. Maybe it has to do with how hard the throws/landings and all that is. Not much help other than to say I’ll post here if my civility ever has that issue.

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Ok thanks for the help I have just been using a regular VIP bearing on it for a while and that seems to work fine so I think it is just those bearings I guess

Just warm water and dish soap then agitate well. Rinse well with water and let water spin the bearing for a few min. Then dry.

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I didn’t think you could put water on a yo-yo bearing?

Most people say you shouldn’t because it could rust, but if you dry it well enough it won’t.

Oh ok I didn’t know that. Do you have any tips for making sure it gets dry enough or cleaning it with water in the first place?

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You can put the bearing on a pencil and spin it out with some compressed air.

I use Acetone because it evaporates super fast.

Are there any mainstream bearings these days that aren’t stainless?

Ivan

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Yes, there are many that are chrome, or a mix of chrome/ceramic. Unfortunately it can be really hard to tell them apart by just looking at them.

Isn’t chrome practically rustproof also though?

I didn’t know they used chrome, I woulda thought the tolerances wouldn’t be tight enough for such a small bearing.

Ivan

What’s helped some of mine was to clean in acetone. Over lubricate it, couple drops does that for me as I run most of mine dry. Throw a few times. Clean again in acetone.
If that doesn’t work I’ll use a needle and get the smallest drop of VM4 (One drops lube) on the needle and apply to the balls if its de-shielded. Then I toss it if it still gives me problems.

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I have only had bad luck with ceramic bearings too. I agree that they always seem to end up responsive

I’ve had 1 ceramic bearing and it was fully ceramic and if the casing and shields are fully ceramic then I’d try to just clean with some diluted soap and water and don’t lube.

I’ve had many bearings go “responsive” so I figured it couldn’t just be that they were all bad. I did some research and talked to the friendly folks at YYE and it turns out that some just need a little more breaking in. To do this I would do a ton of gyroscopic flops (when I say a ton, I mean it could take several hours of play). This seems to do the trick with any bearings that have gone “responsive” on me if cleaning didn’t do the trick (I’ve done this with OD’s, Luftverk ceramic, NSK DS, NSK flat, Konkave). I think if you’ve done all that and cleaned and it’s still loud and responsive, then I’d say it’s gone bad

Hope this helps!

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