Different Styles of Ball Bearings

[yoyoboy224 (major_seventh)]

A nicely lubed AIGR is better than a 10-ball.

[GregP]

@Someone

A nicely lubed AIGR is better than a 10-ball.

^^ Quoted for truth

However, you can’t get those anymore. That I’m aware of. Lately, Ernie has been using the same profiled grooved bearings that everyone else is using.

[rizki_yoist]

@GregP

Watched the video-- so you are tilting the yoyo on purpose to create a more dramatic precession? Pretty cool, really!

What I’m more concerned about is the precession that happens without the yoyo even tilting. When I reorient my body, it’s definitely not on purpose or to look interesting, but out of necessity. If I can tilt a bit to fight the precession, maybe that’s worth investigating.

Yeah that’s exactly what I meant. If the yoyo starts turning one way or another because the string is not perfectly centered, you can just slightly tilt it to counter, and this can be done almost unconsciously with practice, just like controlling the tilt.
In the end, either flat or concave they are simply choices, just like h-shaped vs v-shaped.

[Eli_Flops]

Anybody know what bearing has been shipped with recent CLYWs? I got a chief, the run before the most current one, and it shipped with a flat 10 ball but I have no idea what it is. It’s fine, I just don’t know what it is

[puffball]

@samcordell

But it doesn’t come close to the smoothness of a 10-ball

Dude it is a ten ball bearing

[Elluzion]

8 and 10 ball flat bearings are nice, but in the end they cause the yoyo to get off axis faster and precession occurs… I just really dont enjoy playing with these types after throwing for 3 plus years…

I really prefer center tracs or terapin centering bearings

[Gambit]

@GregP

Centering bearings and technique are barely related, in my opinion. All the technique in the world has no chance of fighting precessing that is caused by flat bearings. It’s just physics.

There is also no such thing as a throw that will guarantee the string will be in the middle of a flat bearing. If you prefer to keep the string from touching the walls or response area, a centering bearing will accomplish this.

If it was all about technique, most of the pros would just use flat bearings. But they don’t. The majority of the pros out there are using profiled bearings; either KK or CT(x). Majority doesn’t mean “all”, so of course you will find examples of amazing players doing just fine with flat. That’s not my point. My point is that profiled bearings are not simply a crutch to compensate for ‘bad technique’.

I can’t feel a difference in the ways some people claim. “Oh, the profiled ones bunch up more” (I tested all evening once and found this to be BS, at least for the tricks I do) or “Flat bearings give a nicer bind” (also turned out to be BS).

However, profiled bearings DO help with precession and tilt. And no matter what the profile is, the build quality of KK and NSK bearings “works” for me. Ditto for the build quality of OD 10-balls, actually, it’s just that I hate how I’ve had a screeching period in every single one. Drives me nuts.

http://makeameme.org/media/created/i-couldnt-agree.jpg

Whilst I’m happy for people to use whatever they want, I personally don’t see any benefit to flat bearings over profiled ones, nor have I had any issues with the alleged “string bunching” or any other negative results from a string centering bearing.

I see string centering bearings as the next evolution of flats (similar to how modern yoyos have changed in design to meet modern play eg. lower sidewalls), which have eliminated the issues flat bearings had such as the precession and the string rubbing up against the response. It takes the location of the string on the bearing completely out of the picture when you throw, so I really don’t see any downside to them.

I also agree that NSK’s are the gold standard of modern bearings, I’ve been nothing but impressed with them so far. That being said, I’m not really sure that the price is going to persuade me to switch from standard CT’s/Buddhas… not yet anyways.