Then you don’t really disagree with me since my comment wasn’t about individual bearings, but bearing brands…
I guess I misunderstood. But have you noticed consistency issues with certain brands? As in certain companies make more duds?
People need to realize that there’s no such thing as a small bearing company. There’s only a few massive corporations that make most bearings, so more often than not all of these bearings being debated on are from the same place made to the same standards in the same way.
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Different brands use different ball numbers and cage(?) types.
It’s probably more correct to say different varieties or types rather than brands. There’s V’s, Double V’s, concave, concave with groove, 8 ball, 10 ball, CT, etc. but these are only “brands” in the sense that people buy them in bulk and then brand them. There’s no factory pumping out Buddha bearings, or Dif-e-Yo concaves, or Twisted Trifectas, or whatever. I can go straight to an Asian supplier and buy thousands of any style of bearing i want and call it whatever i want, but that doesn’t mean it’s different from the rest, if that makes sense?
Some brands must use different suppliers
The previous post is correct to note that there are very few actual manufacturers of precision bearings. Almost all bearings are manufactured to order.
This means that the purchaser can specify the bearing type as well as the tolerances used in making the bearing and race. It is this manufacturing tolerance that gives the bearing its grade and its long-term performance characteristics.
Wow this turned into a good discussion of bearings. Not just Flat is better then Kk. Or kk is better then flat. Those threads get old real fast…
I agree with all this. I just think NSK micro makes the best bearings. I don’t know how large the company is and they probably make generics for various Japanese yo-yos. The only ones I know for sure come from NSK Micro are their gold and platinum bearings and the YYF Gold Centertracs. I imagine most brands order their bearings from China to save costs.
In other words I think there is a real difference between NSK bearings and other brands. NSK is not a brand, but a manufacturer of precision bearings.
I’ve found the main differences of bearings to be the precision of the tolerances. Some bearings are super hard to get in the seat and some are relatively loose
This is very true.
While this is true, I don’t think the ease of getting a bearing into a particular seat has anything to do with its quality. Turning Point’s bearings are insanely hard to get off and they are just CenterTrac. After replacing those with NSKs which are much easier to remove, I easily double the spin times. I think Turning Point just manufactures their bearing seats to match Centertrac bearings to very tight tolerances, but it doesn’t mean the Centertracs are better.
Generally I’ve found that almost all bearings can be made to work well after a good cleaning and a touch of lube. It has to be a good cleaning though. Even if the bearing doesn’t work dry after a good clean, it will often be tolerable with a bit of lube.
This is exactly why I dislike these kind of topics that could have been handled with the manufacturer in the first place. It tends to have other people who would have just considered themselves unlucky to jump on the bandwagon that it’s the yoyos fault since someone else had the same thing happen.
What?
I don’t think he made any comment regarding bearing seat fit and quality. It was just a note about the biggest difference between bearings tends to be the size of their outer track.
However, how tight a bearing sits in its seat definitely affects smoothness. Because tightness is a combination of both a bearings’ outer track dimension and the yoyo seat size, some bearings produce smoother results in some yoyos than others. None of these statements are about quality either, just stating some of my own observations.
Jason
^^^
Very true Jason.
Gen Yo bearings are .0001" tighter than most.
I am loving my ****** Amplitude. It seems to be growing on me and I am finding I am really enjoying the size, weight and sheer speed of this throw.
I have changed the bearing to a Buddha Ripple (all my Whipples ran out!) and I am finding the yoyo is spinning longer and more smoothly and more easily smoothly, BUT this is nothing to do with the AIGR bearing, rather my ‘sloppy’ skills I believe.
This has been the case with all my throws and it is down to me, not the bearing. With my Majesty the AIGR bearing and the yoyo are such a fantastic combination, I’ve never needed to change it, but for all my other throws, as soon as I put in a cleaned, de-shielded, concave bearing it has improved my experience significantly.
I can no longer even rate my throws (the order of my fave throws is subject to regular change as I play more and more), most are so good nowadays, but there is a pattern, and no matter how different in terms of shape, weight, speed etc. the Gen Yos I own are clustered at the very top of what I enjoy!