Great post! I have no affiliation with lotus and don’t know a single person from the company. I came across their site when searching for bearings and did some research…I couldn’t find anything on these so I decided to just try one. While my yoyo didn’t change into a Japanese bimetal in appearance (haha) my yoyo did immediately play better than it did with the nsk that was in it. The first thing that I noticed upon installing the bearing was a significant boost in spin time. I have been trying to do a combo that I just couldn’t get through with a nsk… got through it easily with the lotus. Also… if you know anything about bearings… the higher the abec rating the better the bearing and more precise it is…I never see an abec rating on yoyo bearings. If the claim is true… these are abec 7 which is incredible for a yoyo. They are pretty amazing bearings in my opinion but I suppose that only time will tell
I love chocolate shakes 
I was interested in trying grooved bearings so I got the original super groove. I plan to test them all now
Also in my mind… if these bearings actually sucked, were worth $5, and they didn’t sell at all…Then a. These would be going for much cheaper (to still make sales cause nobody was purchasing) and b. The website would be down because it would be pointless to keep paying for a website if nobody was buying your product. Everyone’s opinion is based off your own bias and how you think. To them based off their own personal bias… the information on their website… could be completely accurate. If they install a bearing in a $12 yoyo and to them… it plays like a $200 Japanese bimetal… then that’s just based off their own biased opinion.
I’ve not tried the lotus bearing, I remember running across their website and being turned off by their claims. I have tried a lot of bearings, and here’s the thing I’ve found that makes a noticeable difference in a bearing’s performance and is relatively easy to check at home. Put the bearing on an inner race bearing extractor, you want the bearing seated on the extractor tight enough that the inner race will not move at all. Grab the outer race and wriggle it side to side, if there’s a lot of wriggle from side to side it will not perform as well as a bearing with less. It seems that if there’s too much deviation, then the outer race of the bearing can make brief contact with the out wall of the bearing seat which will cause to lose spin time anytime you side load the bearing a bit, like you might do on a crooked throw or anytime you get a bit sloppy with your plane management while creating centrifugal force on the yoyo.
The amount of side ways play in the bearing can also make a noticeable impact on how smooth a yoyo feels in the same way that having the post in the yoyo being a bit too small for your bearing will introduce introduce a little bit of vibe. How well the bearing fits the seat and post was always one the first things I checked if I was unhappy with a yoyo, now I also check the bearing for side load deviation.
When I first noticed that bearings can show a large amount of variance in side to side deviation I checked a lot of different bearings and tested them in yoyos. I could definitely notice a difference in how the yoyo plays. I found that NSK bearings and OneDrop’s 10 ball bearings usually have less of this sideways wriggle and are most consistent. I also found that most no name bearings that come with your yoyo usually have a bit more wriggle, but it varies a lot. I suspect that during assembly of higher end yoyos the play testing helps to eliminate particularly sloppy bearings, which probably wind up being used in lower end yoyos. Have you ever had a bearing perform better after deshielding? I was checking this in a bunch of bulk bearings I bought from china, and saw that if the side loading tolerance was poor the shield itself induces some friction between the races, it can slightly bind up. Once I took the shields off these samples I found they had more side load deviation, i.e the bearing shield was getting bound between the inner and outer race. It’s hard to feel much friction by hand, but even a fraction of a percent when spinning at several thousand RPM while experiencing different angles of force during play will lead to a noticeable reduction in spin time.
I’ve since observed that these cheaper bearings tend to get worse side deviation over a few hours of use. Probably due to the quality of the materials used in the bearing cage, balls and races, if any of those are a bit soft they will deform over time and introduce play. The better bearings do not show as much degradation over time.
Thats the thing… who is defining what abec# rating it is. Anyone can pretty much claim anything. Have you tried a mazal ceramic bearing yet? Thats the best bearing I’ve tried so far curious how it stacks up
Its a shame that so many people have been “turned off” by some stuff written on their website. Some of their claims are what made me want to try out their products to see if these claims were nonsense or accurate. Lets just say I’m so happy my brain works differently than most others because I will most definitely be buying more of these bearings. They are the highest quality bearings that I have tried so far. My momma always told me… don’t knock it before you try it. More amazing bearings for me. Won’t have to worry about them going out of stock
I’m assuming a company that rates bearings… who gives any bearing an abec rating? This I do not know haha. All i know…I love these bearings
I was going to mention those. The mazal top hybrids are an amazing bargain, and are my preferred bearing second to the platinum ds. I can’t justify the cost of putting a platinum in everything, but his hybrids are very reasonably priced. Hybrids are a bit noisier than a good steel bearing, but their performance is incredible. I’ll have to try a ceramic next time I order from him.
Mazal top’s yoyos really good and deserve more attention also.
Someone sure excels at creating controversial threads.
I make a post asking about why nobody talks about lotus bearings cause I think they are great bearings and I excell at making controversial topics? And why you couldn’t just say cotton excels and not someone? Interesting… love your content though
I think it’s also the community. Cottons posts were all written in good intention in my opinion but the community here can easily take things the wrong way.
Thank you bro! You feel me? Like whattttttt? It seems that the same handful of people in this community either a. Always have something negative to say or b. try to turn my post into something negative. I make a post asking if anyone else has tried these and I “excell” at making controversial topics.
Lol personally I enjoy all the life you’ve brought to the forum cotton. The discussion sections are way more live ever since you showed up haha
Some people making me want to stop posting…ngl…I appreciate the kind words though my friend
Um, yeah. Have noticed a trend. Goes something like this:
Nobody: We want a controversial topic.
Cotton: Posts some hot take.
Everybody: Weighs in with opinions.
Cotton: Keeps stirring the pot.
Situation escalates quickly.
Cotton: Seems surprised that his hot take was taken as such, claims he was just sharing a simple thought, apologizes if folks took his OP the wrong way and says “Have a blessed day.”
Hahahaha 
Man all I do is try to do nice things for the community, support others, express my opinions on different things, and try to grow as a player. Sorry that I have seemed to rub you the wrong way. I don’t do anything to you besides try to show you love and support every video you make on YouTube. I don’t expect everyone to like me… that’s not how life work. Hope you have a blessed day my friend.
At least we’re having a discussion about something. Nobodies feelings are getting hurt. This thread in particular has been nothin but good vibes. I feel like I’ve seen two different views about a product I knew nothing about before so I learned something and maybe will try it out or not who knows? The point is that we had some reasonably engaging content to write something about on the forum.
Instead of the non cotton alternative which is… nothing?
Maybe he’s just having a bad day…I don’t see any harm in this post nor was I trying to be controversial when creating it lol. I simply wanted more thoughts on these incredible bearings