As the topic title may suggest, I’m wondering is there really a difference between placing weight rings on bimetals inside the body (for ex. Anglam or Igloo) or placing them outside the body (for ex. Draupnir or Pulsefire). I personally like the aesthetics of placing them outside better but I’m curious if there’s a difference in performance overall…
Putting them on the outside puts the weight further towards the rim, but this makes it a bit more fragile than having the ring underneath. With the ring overtop the risk of the ring moving when it is hit increases greatly. Essentially, outside is for pure performance, while inside is more of a compromise between performance and durability. Unless of course you aren’t going for maximum rim weight and you feel it performs better on the inside.
So the purpose of a ring is to add a bit more weight in that desired area and hopefully give it a better spin time and more stability.
The outside ring is better because you put the weight on the outside of the yoyo which brings the moment of inertia around faster if i’m correct. This speeds up the yoyos spin and can make it more stable. This is also the most used type of bimetal ring mostly because it does the most.
Then there is the inner ring which allows for a different type of spin. This does increase stability like the outer ring, but in my experience it doesnt always have the solid bimetal spin. I have found these to have increased stability and minor increases in spin time, but to me these have the more playful feel and can also be used to make the yoyo more agile.
There is actually a third type of ring. Which is sight line bimetal ring as seen on the 2014 genesis. I have seen enough these to really give a whole lot of insight but i found the genesis to be very agile on the string and have what a lot of people call float. i personally would care to see more of these types of rings.