How often should you clean your ball-bearing?

General Yo-Yo
1

Forgive me if there is another topic like this somewhere else. I looked and could not find any.

About 2 weeks ago my DM bearing started making this really annoying noise, and would not spin nearly as long as it did before. So I got it cleaned, (with my busy schedule this took about a week to get around to :slight_smile: and bought another YoYoFactory bearing so I wouldn’t have to wait to play my DM if the original bearing started making that noise again.

Well, it did. So I put my new bearing in and it worked fine until 4 days later. My new bearing started making noise, (a different sound then the old bearing made) but it still spins fine.

From reading other topics about bearings, I assume thats just the new bearing breaking in.

But about the other one…

Is it common the bearing needs cleaning this often?

If not, what am I doing wrong?

Would lube help?

Please note: I’ve had this yo-yo since early may, and have played it practically everyday since. So I doubt that noise from the old bearing is because it’s breaking in.

Also, the caps from the old bearing were not placed back on and got lost.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

2

You do no need to clean the beaat all. They are breaking in. I think you can ignore the noise, is not, put lube in it. Cleaning makes it louder.

1 Like
3

As far as the new bearing I think your right, but the old bearing won’t spin as long as it did when it wasn’t making that noise… ???

4

Weird. Maybe something fell in it since it has an annoying noise. But if you cleaned it and it still did that, I don’t know, try cleaning it again, really well this time.

5

You really only have to clean it when it starts to spin worse than usual. If its noisy, and the spin is not affected, don’t bother cleaning it. Just clean it if you see any problems in the spin. If you don’t like the noise, put some lube in it.

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6

The odd thing is, that after I cleaned it the noise went away and it played fine.

It was about a few hours of play after cleaning before the bearing made any kind of noise.

7

After those few hours did it spin less?

8

Yes.

9

Wait, did you deshield the yoyo before cleaning it? And are you using mineral spirits/lighter fluid?

10

Noise happens. I wouldn’t really worry about it.

I’ve never cleaned a bearing and I don’t plan to. As long as you have your shields on and don’t take your yoyo to the beach and make it part of your sandcastle, you should be good.

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11

Yes to both.

12

Have you done anything to mod your Dark Magic?

13

I’m not going to ask questions. I’m gonna try to answer some.

You’re going about this all correctly, but you forgot one thing to do. Make sure you lube your bearing slightly after you clean it. After you clean it, it starts making a grinding noise, and that’s understandable. The balls in the ball bearing are grinding down on each other after use. Lubrication would stop that though.

Just add lube, and you will be all right :wink:

1 Like
14

No.

It was lubed when It was cleaned.

Should I lube it again?

This leads me to another question: How often should I lube it? :wink:

15

Yes, cleaning it removes all the lube, and other stuff that was inside the bearing. You should lube it again, but not too much. Drop a small drop onto a pin, then put whats remaining into the bearing.

You should just lube it slightly whenever it gets loud like to say.

16

I lube after i clean it, and when I get it stock. You don’t need to lube it often, that would make it more responsive eventually with all the lube stacking up.

If it gets slightly loud, you can use lube to shut it up. If you are fine with the loudness, just play with it like that.

17

Lube was put onto the bearing right after It was cleaned.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. :slight_smile: