Duncan DragonFly "shorting out"?

Yo-Yo Reviews
1

I’ve had my Duncan DragonFly for several months now. Occasionally, the normally very noisy yo-yo will “short out” - it will stop making its standard hissing noise, become completely silent, and greatly slow down. This is usually fixed by a change of the string, or sometimes by just yo-yoing until it goes away; however, it’s becoming more common. I have never lubricated my bearing - is this the reason?
Thanks.

EDIT: I haven’t cleaned my bearing either. I need to start taking care of my yo-yo. The answer to my question is starting to feel kind of obvious. Still, input would be appreciated.

2

Clean the bearing then lube it. Does the bearing feel like it spins freely if you hand turn it?

3

Just make sure when you do lubricate it that you use a thicker lube. If you use a thin lube it will become unresponsive and hard to play with.

4

If I’m holding it parallel to the ground and spinning it? Nope, stays put.

5

He’s reffering to flicking the bearing in the seat to check and feel for gunk of any kind. If you havent cleaned your bearing you probably should, then lube it with some lube and change pads if you have to

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6

What ^ said. Or you can take the bearing and stick it on a tip of a pencil and try flicking/turning it and see if it feels smooth, very resisting, rough, or clean. I’ve had bearings get gunk in them where it felt ‘gritty’ as well as feel like there’s no spin in it. A quick soak in a chemical (caution) then some thick lube (if you want it back to responsive) or thin lube (if you want unresponsive…Dragonflies are meant to be responsive IMO).

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7

Actually ANY lube will make a yoyo more responsive. Even thin lube will make a yoyo more responsive, just not as drastically as thick lube.

8

Alright, thanks guys. Yeah, the bearing barely spins at all. I’ll get to work cleaning it. The brass bracers have a bit of gunk on them as well; should I do anything about those?

9

I would clean em too, no harm done.

10

All right, I’ll get on this. One more thing - I’ve found that when compared to a DragonFly fresh out of the box, my much-used DragonFly not only sleeps for a shorter amount of time, but is also a LOT noisier. I take it this is a cleaning/lubing issue as well?

11

Yeah. The noise could be dirt or sand or something in the bearing, which also slows it down.