One Drop Flat Bearings Are Outdated: Change My Mind

Yo-Yo Mods and Maintenance
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I think you are overselling the difference in performance. It’s not a fact that Urging bearings perform better. It’s a subjective difference and just because some of you try to claim it as fact, doesn’t make it so.

I’m not arguing one is better than than other. Our data shows a 50/50 split in PREFERENCE. This is a preference thing.

What blows me away is this focus on us shipping our yoyos with a different bearing, but no focus on all the other companies selling so many yoyos with tight bearing posts making it hard to swap the bearing or even damage the post if you do. I know a lot of our customers appreciate how hard we work on getting this right. It’s weird in this thread that there is less outrage about essentially defective products at high rates, than there is about what bearing we ship our yoyos with.

Lastly. We love our bearing and will continue to ship in our yoyos (even the “competition” oriented ones). We will also continue to work hard on making it easy to swap the bearing in our yoyos, and we fully support all you to have your own preference and opinion about what bearing is best.

A more accurate car analogy would be for the other companies. It’s like selling a brand new car, but if you need take the wheels off, you damage the car. Also, your analogy uses steering which is a permanent feature, not a part that wears out and needs to be changed. The bearing is more like tires.

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403

I think if there’s only a single thing that someone feels is “wrong” with a product, they’re more likely to bring it up. Anyhow, as a constant fiddler w/ bearings and yo yos I’ve really been appreciating your bearing posts.

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404

Speaking as someone who puts a Boss Rage bearing into every One Drop he gets, I take no issue with the fact that they ship with a flat bearing, especially given how easy they are to swap out. Whether or not flat bearings might be considered old fashioned or obsolete doesn’t really factor into it for me. It’s just not important enough of an issue to object to one way or the other, in my view.

I will say, however, that I bristle a bit whenever I read a post claiming that the vast difference in yoyo behavior I experience(d) between flat and grooved is all in my imagination. That the difference either doesn’t exist or is so insignificant as to be imperceptible/inconsequential. I promise you that had the difference not been profoundly night-and-day, particularly with regard to precession, I would have kept/used the flat bearings all along (because they are in all other respects fantastic bearings).

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405

I agree they behave different (how could they not?). I don’t think it’s a fact that one or the other is superior in “performance” though.

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406

The performance difference is there. You’re not imagining it. It’s just that some people like to have those bearings in, just like some people like to play with organics.

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407

I agree that tight bearing seats are awful. And I literally don’t care what type of bearing a yo-yo ships with as long as it’s quality. I remember One Drop 10 balls being the standard of quality when I was around before.

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408

Has anyone here had a yoyo ruined from a tight bearing post? I know that every single one of my Yoyofactory yoyos have very tight bearing posts where the anodisation is rubbed off through bearing removal, but has anyone had a ruined yoyo from this?

409

I really appreciate your bearing posts too, @da5id. I especially appreciate your Cabal guts.

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410

Yes actually I have. YYF CZM8. Tried switching the bearing, the bearing broke, and my pliers dinged the yoyo near the center.

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411

Depends on what you mean by “ruin”. Certainly our experience is that when the bearing post takes damage, vibe is induced. Some people don’t mind that.

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412

Thank you :slight_smile: Appreciate that.

413

I have. I bought a new Corruption, nice and smooth, beautiful colorway. I decided to try a different bearing, and it was a tight mess to get out. After I finally removed the bearing, I replaced with a Buddha Ripple.

The yoyo is still playable, but has a vibe that will not go away. Really disappointed in the manufactures, but I never filed a claim.

EDIT: Also, love the OD bearing posts.

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414

How are companies getting away with this? Ignorance I suppose.

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I mean it’s not really a defect, maybe yoyos are smoother with tight bearing seats? I doubt they’re doing it intentionally. It probably also varies per yoyo.

I like that OD is aware of the issue and make looser seats. It works really well with the side effect axle system too

416

It is much easier to jam the bearing into a tight bearing seat and have it be smooth than to perfectly machine it with the right tolerance. I know the thread is long, but OD has mentioned it further up. It kind of is defective, because the magic is removed once you take the yoyo apart and the untunable vibe happens.

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417

In fairness, it’s really difficult to get the post size right. The tolerance range for anodizing build-up is bigger than the tolerance range for yo-yo bearing posts.

The reason this is difficult is because there are two high tolerance goals competing on the same dimension.

Normally when a bearing is used on something, it is press fit - not meant to be serviced easily. But on a yo-yo, (we feel) the bearing needs to be easily serviced so a press fit is not correct. A press fit means the post size is bigger than the inner diameter of the bearing and you force it on.

On the flip size, the post size cannot be too small because that causes the yo-yo to be vibey. That leaves a tiny tiny window for what is “correct”. In manufacturing, the higher the tolerance, the higher cost. The size of the window for correct for a bearing post is about .0002". That is 2 ten thousandths of an inch. Put another way, that is 1/17th the diameter of one human hair. You cannot see this. This is NASA level stuff.

The high-end yo-yo market has seen demand for lower and lower prices and the manufacturers have responded by reducing the amount of tolerance they need to hit in order to lower costs.

Specifically, the tolerance range has been increased to include the bearing post being too big. This doesn’t mean that the post is always too big because “correct” is also in the range so many yo-yos made this way will have good posts, but also many won’t.

Why do they choose to expand the tolerance into big posts, but not into small posts? Because small posts produce vibey yo-yos and the market (you all), clearly have spoken that you prefer a smooth yo-yo out of the box, even if it means that you need a bearing removal tool and also run the risk of causing damage.

So I wouldn’t say everyone is getting away with it. I would say, it’s kind of a bargain made to please the customer. Low prices and smooth yo-yos out of the box are the most important thing to yo-yo customers in general. We know this based on feedback and complaints about vibe. Every yo-yo maker will tell you how much they want to avoid customer service complaints around vibe. This is you, the consumer, getting the market you have voted for with your money.

At One Drop, we didn’t accept this bargain. We work really hard to get the post sizes right AND compete on price. Is this the best approach? Are we struggling in vain? Not sure really. But we’ll keep doing it :slight_smile:

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418

If you can do it, so can they.

So they just aren’t investing the time into getting it right or delivering the quality of product that they should.

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419

Well we aren’t exactly doing it. I would say our prices our still a big higher.

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420

Your prices are slightly higher and also made in the USA. It’s a huge achievement I think.

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421

OneDrop quality is virtually unmatched though. I’d say you pay for what you’re getting.

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