So first off I picked up the Violet Comp grade Amplitude. Took it out of the box a couple days ago and have been throwing it around since. Suddenly a day and a half after I got it I noticed that the bearing was making a really weird sound. I thought I was just breaking it in and that the noise would go away in a bit.
This is when the problem started. I noticed that my spin times were getting less and less. Also the balls inside where making a kind of screeching sound but a little different. (I know the sounds of a OD 10 ball screeching). Now when I placed my order I also picked up a OD 10 ball (gotta love dem 10 balls) ;D .
I kept throwing the Amp thinking the issue would go away. Now during this time it became super responsive. I know this is not right, something is really wrong. So I took it apart and let me tell you, this thing was really tight! I could not believe now tight the half’s were put together. After awhile of twisting it and having my friend try it. We got it apart.
I did a bunch of finger spins on the bearing while it was still in the half and I got almost zero spin time. I took a piece of paper tower and some pliers and got the bearing out, and then…
I popped in the OD 10 Ball and its fixed!!!
I’m going to try and clean the AIGR bearing from the Amp and see if I can fix it. This is the first time I have had this happen to me. Also its my first time using an AIGR bearing.
Definitely not a knock on the product as a whole (except taking it apart ). I do know that bearings go bad and sometimes you just get a dud. No big deal, since I just popped in a new one.
Has anyone else had this issue with a AIGR bearing or a Gen Yo?
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Just so everyone knows, I am really happy with the product and I would recommend it!
Because General Yo does not manufacture the bearings and I have no idea how I would get in touch with the bearing company. This was mostly just a call out to see if anyone else has had a similar thing happen to them.
No they don’t but they use it in their product and should thus be responsible for it by default. GM doesn’t make probably 95% of the parts in their cars, yet everything except the tires is covered und the GM warranty. Gen Yo is a good company to work with.
Ok, so i like to think that I know Ernie pretty well, and I know that he likes keep things the same. I heard from some of the team members like Alex that the bearing company is not even sending them the same stuff each time.
Recently they did a run of yoyos with Buddha bearings, and those did not turn out as smooth i think.
My experience with the AIGR bearing is the opposite. They are super-smooth and extremely quiet. Have you tried a drop of VM lube? Any time my AIGR bearings make any sound at all I can make them silent with some OneDrop VM lube. They are among my favorite flat-bearings.
That yours is so un-responsive sounds like some foreign material has got into the race and is jamming the bearing. I would replace it.
The Amplitude deserves a nice concave bearing anyway. Stock flat bearings are almost always terrible no matter the manufacturer. For the price of the comp grade seriously who cares. Such an insane deal for such an amazing yoyo that it really shouldn’t matter that a $2 bearing or whatever is no good. I’ve had issues with every type of bearing, from $1 to $25. I think people need to view bearings just like they do string - use it 'til it dies then toss it and put in a new one.
Bearings go bad, frequently, i don’t believe it’s a fair expectation to expect every manufacturer to provide perfect bearings with every yoyo. They have no way of knowing if a bearing will last 5 minutes or 5 years. As long as it’s smooth and functions as expected on that first throw then they’ve done their job imo.
We have been cleaning our own bearings from the manufacture since day one.
We have always got the same, and have used buddah in the past, as James Reed was digin them.
For a while we lubed them on the heavy side which took a break in period.
As of late we have been shipping them more on the dry side, which does take lubing like any other bearing.
We do get one here and there that acts up dry.
Like people have mentioned here, its a good idea to contact us the company if you have issues.
AIGR is a great flat bearing. I liked it on the heavily lubed side; didn’t do that with my Amp and had the same “screech” thing described here and that OD 10-balls have. Quck clean and some lube and she was ticking along until I decided to drop a KK in because I generally like’em. So far so good!
I’ve stated this before, but the variability between individual bearings and the ease of dust or string fuzz getting in them is a larger factor impacting bearing performance than the brand of bearings.
Put another way… There is little sense in fussing over which bearing brand to select when all bearings are just as likely to get a bit of dust in them and require cleaning within a few months anyways.
More important than picking the best quality bearing, is buying from a manufacturer or brand that backs their product with a good warranty.
I recently got an Amplitude as well. I was blown away by how bad the AIGR bearing was. I think part of it had to do with the bearing seat not having been machined completely flat, but anyway I got rid of the bearing and put it an NSK. After about 10 hours of play I’m getting much better sleep times. Almost got 9 minutes with the NSK which is quite good considering the weight. But I could barely get 3 with the AIGR.
IMO it’s a bad bearing, but maybe I just got a bum one. But I don’t even like flat bearings so I didn’t really care.
I disagree with Jason, some bearings are noticeably better then others, and if you keep your bearings clean it makes a difference. I do run my bearings dry though, so bad bearings stand out.
Are you saying some individual bearings are noticeably better than others? Or some bearing brands (tested over large sample sizes) are regularly better than others?
I do agree that there are some truly crappy bearing brands that are probably worse than others on average, but by and large, most decent quality bearings, i.e.: any sold on YYE are more or less pretty similarly performing.
This hasn’t been my experience at all. I get vastly different performance out of different bearing brands. There are quality control issues that make the probability of getting a bad bearing X% for whatever brand, but ignoring that, assuming you get one of the good ones, some brands are still better than others. If you lubricate your bearings the difference is less appreciable.
I run my bearings dry, and even freshly cleaned or brand new bearings can vary in sleep times by a factor of 4.
Do a sleeper test with a brand new NSK gold (or substitute a Gold Centertrac), then using the same yo-yo and string do a sleeper test with a regular Centertrac, AIGR, or similar low to mid range bearing. Run both dry. The sleep time for the first test will be much longer.
Example: I recently bought a Turning Point Isotope 2. Using a Something Type 2 string I did a couple sleeper tests with the default Centertrac bearing and could only get about 4 minutes (don’t remember the exact number). After putting in an NSK, using the same string I was able to get over 9.5 minutes on the first throw.
That’s just one example. I do this with every new yo-yo I get. The NSK always kills the included bearing for sleep times. The only other bearing I’ve tried that performs similarly is the YYF Gold Centertrac, which, interestingly enough, is manufactured by NSK.
I just prefer NSK’s version to the YYF version because I like the concave shape better than Centertrac, but I’ve used 4 of the Gold Centertracs and probably a dozen of the NSK concave bearings. The Gold Centertracs seem to degrade faster too, though I haven’t used enough of them to state this to anything more than a probability.
In my own experience having handled hundreds and hundreds of bearings and yoyos, I have never seen a repeatable, demonstrable, difference in bearing brand performance that is noticeable during normal play.
(I should note that there is clearly a difference between concave and flat bearings… In my post I’m talking about general bearing performance.)
Granted, two minutes additional sleep time doesn’t mean you’ll get two minutes additional play time during regular practice. It’s probably more like 30 additional seconds. Personally I find the difference significant enough to warrant buying NSKs, but I get that some people wouldn’t.
). I do know that bearings go bad and sometimes you just get a dud. No big deal, since I just popped in a new one.