Anyone tried any after market D bearings? The konkave’ or nsk?
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I’ll have to agree with @Theycallmecotton the Don seems to spin really well… numerous times I’ve taken my longest combo and just added on entire tricks to it with my don.
Not trying to deny physics just saying the Don has a lot of power balance and spin. Not sure why it’s still in stock here at YYE. HINT!
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The konkave D bearings are just as high quality as the konkave C bearings. For quite a while Frank’s bearings were about the only centering bearings you could reliably find in A and D sizes. I haven’t needed to buy a D bearing for quite a while now so I’m not sure if others have become available.
I wonder if Sturm Panzer uses the NSK D bearings in their top end yoyos? I’ve noticed the D bearings in sturm panzers play really nice. To really see what a D bearing can do get your hands on a leo sniper or another of their high end bimetals, they are amazing and can really spin. Sturm panzer’s designs tend to be pretty extreme and might not be to a lot of people’s taste, but they offer a very different experience from other competition focused bimetals.
I like D bearings, but I think the yoyo has to be designed with the bearing in mind. I doubt the outcome would be satisfying if you took a shutter and just changed the seat, post and response to fit a D. @lytelvin talked about the design process when he introduced the tiramisu, which I really like a lot and is my favorite RSO. His minibowl is really great also, that little yoyo has a lot of zip.
I love Spyy and Hspin and as others have pointed out they did a lot of D bearing designs. I think this is the difference, the yoyo’s design must take the bearing size as a large consideration. The don, circle city’s warbird, freshly dirty rooster and moldy bread, @hobbygod’s assassin, RSO’s tiramisu, and the sturm panzers all strike me as good designs. I really don’t know a thing about yoyo design, so I could be totally off base on all this, its all based off my own subjective experience.
I think how much of a difference you feel will depend a lot on your play style. I don’t like to throw a yoyo super hard, I’m getting older and worry about repetitive stress injuries from constantly throwing a yoyo really hard. I work a lot on getting as much as possible out a of gentler throw and letting my play flow and be clean. When I’m focused on this I can tell a definite difference between C and D bearings in terms of how much spin I get and how long I can push it and still bind. I think this equates to the chill feeling others have mentioned.
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I’ve never seen the ‘need’ for a D bearing as they’re so close to A, but the physics are definitely interesting.
As some have mentioned, smaller bearing diameters won’t spin for as long, but they will spin faster. It’s similar to how an ice skater pulls their arms in closer to their body to spin faster. This is because the further the mass is away from the axis of rotation, the higher the inertia. This is why there’s a desire to push as much mass as possible to the outer edges of a yoyo, as seen in most modern designs and bimetals. Inertia is a property of matter that represents a resistance to a change in velocity. For example, a semi-truck moving at 60mph has much more inertia than a sedan moving at the same speed, which is why is takes semi-trucks greater braking strength to stop, and likewise greater power to accelerate compared to the sedan.
If you apply this to rotational bodies like ball bearings, a smaller diameter bearing will be easier to spin faster, but the same energy you exerted (throwing a sleeper) will be used up faster, thus you get faster rotational velocity but lower spin times.
But since most yoyoers are much more concerned with how long a yoyo is spinning, rather than how fast it’s spinning, C bearings have become the more popular choice.
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What makes a yoyo designer decide, hey I’m going to design a yoyo with a D bearing today? What perceived advantage is there that would drive that choice? If the answer is no more involved or sophisticated than, “Why not?” then I’m not going to trust the design or the designer much. I want to know that they had a compelling reason to stray from the well-understood performance baseline of the C size bearing, or else I’m probably going to pass on it just on principle.
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Been many times I was like how is this still spinning??? lol
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Sturm Panzer doesn’t use NSK or Dif-e-yo bearings. They use some generic brand. In fact, their product descriptions almost always have a disclaimer suggesting that you upgrade to dif-e-yo:
Blockquote The bearing is a CP-06 9-ball bearing. If you wish to power-up your RY-007, we suggest you change out the bearing for a Dif-e-Yo Konkave bearing of the same size. Please note that you take responsibility for modifying your yo-yo.
The only “special” bearing that they use is an iridescent concave bearing for the Eclipse Ogre Arousal
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@bpelletier
Want to give my Freshly Dirty Rooster a try? It uses a D. I’d let you borrow it for a few weeks so you can experience a D for yourself 
Hit me up with a PM if interested!
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Can’t speak for all D bearing yoyos, but a D sized bearing just compliments smaller throws like the assassin and d bearing 5050 better than a C bearing.
Like many have said they spin faster because of the smaller diameter, which also leads to tighter more consistent binds as well, and can offer these smaller throws a slight bump in stability without a ridiculous amount of inertia.
5050 was originally a C bearing because I didn’t have the design knowledge to make it a D bearing, I think the difference for people who will own both a C bearing version and the new/upcoming D bearing version will be very easy to see, and will make for a good comparison post for this topic.
D bearing is not always better and is often far from it if a D bearing is used just for the sake of it, but when it’s the focus of the design it can really offer a substantially different playfeel
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If I’m designing something smaller or that isn’t designed for unresponsive 1a, I look at other bearing sizes. The bearing is part of the whole of the design though, and should be evaluated through that lens. C is a great default choice because it’s easy and inexpensive to source and has many options available. Don’t forget that the response pads also need to be widely available. There’s been some effort to standardize them recently for D bearings, at least.
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I’m really not sure how people can say they don’t feel a difference between a D bearing throw and a C bearing throw, unless they’re just extremely similar yoyos anyway.
I have several D bearing yoyos: the Circle City Warhawk, the Zero Gravity Don, the Dressel Designs Assassin, and the Freshly Dirty Moldy Bread. I can definitely say there’s something about all of those that sets them apart from all my C bearing throws. The D bearing just has a unique feel, which is hard to describe but they have more snappy binds, and to me they just feel right. All of those were designed specifically around the D bearing, and I don’t think they’d feel the same with a C bearing and standard response pads. It’s hard to quantify, especially since I’m not the best at describing how yoyos feel anyway. But there definitely is a difference in how they feel.
The Don and the Warhawk are bi-metal, I’m not really seeing people mentioning that aspect but bi-metal throws inherently are more powerful and spin longer, but honestly I think we’re kind of past the whole “How long can your yoyo spin?” era. Like, a few years ago yeah it mattered if one yoyo could spin for a minute while another could spin for 20 seconds. But now most modern yoyos can spin for a few minutes, more than enough time for most tricks.
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I still can’t land Kwyjibo most of the time, and I like to try landing it again and again off the same throw, as many times as it takes to land it, before I have to bind and throw again. The more spin time I have, the more attempts I can get before having to reload. And that’s true for other tricks, not just Kwyjibo. Ultimately having lots of spin time is just more efficient for my practice time.
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Ouch.
D bearings = no longer in business?
Lol , jk. I’m all for variety.
Let’s see some whacks bearing stuff in the future!
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What about a new Edge with D bearing? I would love to have one
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MR85 bearing in the coming RBC! Really non-standard for yoyos.
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Thanks for sharing, bud!
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I was gonna add this to my recent order but totally forgot. D-9
good informative video, thanks
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A good enough reason for you to like them, or a good enough reason to release yo-yos with them?!