I am having problems with my One Drop benchmark. Sometimes when I throw it it will act normally and be unresponsive, but other times when I tug on the string the yoyo jumps up and hits my hand. I have already tried cleaning the bearing with rubbing alcohol and lubing it with thin yoyo lube. Any help is appreciated.
One Drop yoyos are known for having very responsive pads, which I love. But you have to be careful not to put too much lube in their bearings and keep really fat strings away from them. Maybe blow some compressed air into the bearing for several seconds in both directions to clear out any excess lube there might still be in there.
Also, make sure the pads aren’t popping out anywhere. Press them back into their slots firmly if you have to, just to be sure.
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Try cleaning the bearing again, don’t use any thin lube, just clean it. You should be able to get it totally unresponsive that way.
After you have it cleaned fully and verified it is totally unresponsive … then if you want to you can add a tiny drop of thin lube to make it quieter and smoother. This is optional.
If you can’t get it fully unresponsive after cleaning it a few times the bearing might be bad.
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I have a magic yoyo which had the same problems until I cleaned it. The bearing has been fine except when I tug On the string the string wraps around the bearing, but the yoyo doesn’t come back. After putting that bearing in the One Drop the same problem occurred so maybe the pads in the yoyo are the problem?
If you have put the bearing in a different yo-yo and the problem follows the bearing… then the bearing may be bad, especially if you’ve already tried cleaning it a few times.
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I’m pretty sure your Hyperspin post explicitly describes a bearing that causes the string to wrap around it as a bearing in need of attention.
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The problem follows the bearing, but not as much. This is probably because of the grippier pads in the one drop. Thank you for all your great suggestions
I would definitely try cleaning it a few times first. Some household liquids to use as cleaner:
- rubbing alcohol / isopropyl alcohol (95 - 99%)
- nail polish cleaner / acetone (as pure as possible)
- lighter fluid
If you have compressed air around use that to spin it dry after thoroughly shaking it around in cleaning fluid.
I used to have a problem with that with a lot of my throws. I came to the conclusion that the problem was my lack of string tension control. Once I learned to keep the string neutral I haven’t had a problem with it. That could just be me tho.
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Thank you so much, after soaking it in acetone and moving it around with a toothpick it is finally unresponsive. I’m not sure how long it will last, but at least it worked 
If you clean the bearing and relube, and the problem follows the bearing to new yoyo, try NOT lubing. Very unlikely the bearing is bad.
Lubing makes a bearing responsive. Yeah, I know that’s counter intuitive, but it’s true. As noted above, blow any excess lube out with compressed air if you feel you need to lube. That’s what I do.
Will running the bearing dry wear it out? I noticed the bearing getting very loud before I cleaned it.
I personally recommend lubing, it makes the bearing much quieter / smoother to me personally … but you have to be really careful and aggressively spin out excess lube, and it MUST be thin lube. Details here.
Anyway the first step is a thorough cleaning to make sure you can get it fully unresponsive (free spinning), sounds like you achieved that, so that’s good!
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