Bought a DM II about a year ago, and it just doesn’t seem to perform as well as it should. I probably should have exchanged it, but didn’t.
I’m aware of ‘vibe’ but haven’t had much experience or problems with it. I do know that plastic will more than metal, but not sure what is considered normal.
Anyway, here is what I’m experiencing:
spin can really peter out on moves such as Gyro Flops.
I’ll throw a fast sleeper, then slip my finger between the halves to smooth out the spin, but at its best, my finger feels like a car tire moving over a grooved road at high speed.
I’ll grip the string with thumb and forefinger about 1 inch over the spinning yoyo, and I feel the string buzz significantly - in fact, my entire forefinger tickles a bit, haha.
I’ve tried different bearings, all of which had been cleaned properly. It has never been dropped.
I’m just not sure how common or uncommon these things are for a DM II, and where on the ‘vibe scale’ they are
Tried everything mentioned and all looked good until I looked into the halves where the bearing sits with some magnifiers, and I saw 1 raised area on each half. They look like a little volcanos - a raised area with a hole in the center. My guess is that these are areas where whatever injected the plastic into the mold was removed from the plastic, and the plastic didn’t flatten.
Assuming these are the culprits, I’ll try to find something to scrape them down. Will likely be tough, as the working area is small and recessed. We’ll see how it goes!
Easier than I thought. I used the small metal pin on my YYF bearing tool to scrape the raised areas of the bearing seats smooth.
Oddly enough, the vibe remains the same, but the performance of the yoyo is much better - flops don’t die nearly like they did before, for example. I also noticed that the yoyo used to be pretty loud, kind of like a whining, cranky engine But it is quieter, now.
I’ll keep tooling around to see if I can reduce the vibe. I compared the DM2 vibe to
YYJ Vexed
YYJ Legacy III
The DM2 has much more vibe than the YYJs.
Will try removing the caps and snooping around there.
In my experience a DM2 can have anywhere from very little to moderate vibe without there being an extraneous issue. I do find that some YYJs can be picky about their bearings. Sometimes I try out a bunch of different bearings until I find the one that just sits best, vibes least and feels most comfortable. At one point I had a DM2, in fact, which had a decent amount of vibe despite the various bearings I’d tried in it. Months later I happened to stick a bearing I had lying around in there and suddenly it was one of the smoothest DM2’s I’d thrown.
Are the metal rings seated properly? They should sit perfectly flush against the plastic. If they are slightly off at all it can cause a good amount of vibe.
Other than that…
If you bought it from us I’d be happy to take a look at it, but no guarantees of a fix with a yo-yo that old.
Hi, Garrett. Re: the metal rings (I’m assuming you mean the weight rings on the outer edge of the halves), I at first thought they were fine, but I decided to check them more carefully. Here is what I found.
I took my fingernail and glided the edge of it along the juncture of the metal and plastic. On one of the halves, I found an area where my nail sunk into a groove (or, separation). Moving the nail along in the groove, the connection between plastic and metal got better and my fingernail moved out. This little separation is about 1/4 of the yoyo’s circumference.
In all honesty, the yoyo is about 2 years old - though it is in newish condition due to not being played But I’ve taken the yoyo almost comletely apart, including the response rings, trying to tune it up, so it’s hardly eligible for a return. But I do appreciate your reaching out.
(BTW, if you’re interested in seeing that one half, PM me. I’d be happy to mail it to you if would like to see it).
Well, I never said it was eligible for a return so glad we agree there.
I’d be happy to look at it , and will do what I can to fix it up either way. If your fingernail can fit between the metal rings and the plastic body then that’s definitely the issue. If you want to send it back I can try to fix it for you, or if you’re feeling handy you can try to fix it yourself and save the shipping.
I’m basically just going to smack it with a rubber mallet a few times, so if you have one of those then I can talk you through it lol. Or - Feel free send me a message about shipping it back and I’ll smack it for you.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I took the half out to the garage and whacked on it, and it corrected that problem. The yoyo was better, but not where I thought it probably should be, so I took both halves and whacked on them for a bit Just laid them on the concrete, outside edges down.
It did take care of most of the problem vibe. It still has a bit more than a couple of my other plastic hybrids, but not that much. It still needs a DifeYo KonKave bearing to work well - standard and CT bearings aren’t up to snuff for whatever reason, both before and after the whacking.
I typically place the yo-yo (metal ring half down, as you did) on a flat work table. Concrete works if you don’t mind scratching up the metal a little, but wood is a little safer. Then I would place another cheap plastic yo-yo over the half i’m hitting to avoid loosening the solid spin axle and to spread out the impact closer to the rims.
Either way, sounds like it helped the issue. Glad it’s working better!
