Hello! I have been yoyoing for exactly 1 year now and its been super fun. I have a problem with my bearings though. It seems like they start to become responsive very quickly, with in a day or even a couple minutes some times. I feel like I have tried everything to fix this; cleaning the bearing in 100% acetone, cleaning the yoyo seat, air blowing the bearing, trying bearings on different yoyos, and even getting brand new bearings but the issue still comes back. It could be an environment thing because I have 2 cats and the house can get a little dusty, but those are issues that are not easy to fix. So I was wondering if anyone had experience with this. Thanks!
P.S I have also played with dry bearings and lubricated bearings after cleaning them.
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If you’re properly cleaning the bearing, running it dry, and putting it straight back into the yoyo, it really shouldn’t go responsive that quickly. In my experience that usually points to one of three things: a bad bearing, incomplete cleaning, or contamination happening before it goes back in.
Once the bearing is installed, it’s fairly protected, so it’s unlikely to pick up debris that fast unless something else is going on.
It might also be worth checking the string and pads to make sure they’re in good condition, since those can sometimes cause symptoms that feel like a bearing issue.
In essence, there’s no magical unknown reason your bearings are going responsive, it must be one of these issues.
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I have cats and dust, I deshield and clean all my bearings with dawn dish soap and blow dry them with a datavac. I don’t usually use lube anymore but you can use a little bit to quiet it down.
If you don’t have some kind of air compressor or datavac you can put them in a hand towel and spin your arm around to use centrifugal force to dry them. Or just leave them out on a towel to air dry. Just don’t put them in anything with water still in them because stainless steel can still rust.
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Are you sure its the bearing? Does the bearing spin freely when you have the yoyo apart? Can you send us a pic of the yoyo profile so we can see the response pads?
So far using dawn dish soap has been working! Ill have to see how long it lasts for. I also tried using the 100% acetone on a qtip to clean the yoyo seat and there was a bunch of black gunk on it. Thank you for the suggestion
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Actually I am still having the issue. My bearings seem to only have about an hour or two worth of play time before the actual bearing is slowed down when I spin it. I recently got a new yoyo as well and without tampering with it or anything, after 30 minutes it started to play responsive and the bearing slowed down dramatically. Its starting to get a little discouraging because I have to be very careful with my tricks because it could bind randomly. Any other recommendations would be great
For more context that spin nice and smooth for a while then start to get really gritty sounding then starts to become relatively responsive
