These look amazing. Hopefully, they’ll be available in C size.
Thoughts?
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Those little grooves that slow down the balls might make a yoyo vibe. Good idea, though.
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Maybe, but they’re small enough not to slow the working of the bearing, which suggests to me that even if it’s noticeable, it wouldn’t be too bad.
I think the bigger problem is that given the extra cost to make a bearing this way, they’d mostly be used in larger, very expensive bearings, and bearings intended for high performance machinery. It’ll probably be a while (if ever) before someone makes a little C bearing with this tech in it.
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Looks interesting
That is very very cool indeed. Who would have thought that there was such a simple solution to the problem of having bearing cages eh? There are some very clever people out there. 
As far as yoyos go, I doubt it would make much difference. Throw a cheap $1 C bearing into your favourite metal throw and with a bit o’ string twisting you should be able to get it to spin for at least 5 minutes. That being said, I’ve never seen a one-throw that was over 2 minutes (and only ever seen the one), and most people don’t usually go for too much longer than a minute between throws.
So really, it’s the interaction between the string and response, as well as the forces you’re putting on the bearing that seem to have the most impact on spin times, not the bearing itself. I doubt one of these amazing bearings would perform noticably different to the bearings we already have now.
Still, very cool technology. Something very satisfying about how easily that thing spins. 8)
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Vibe is bad for any bearing so I would think that they have considered this.
The interesting thing will be the patent.
There would only be one company that could make them so it would be up to that company to make a C size and then decide what they want to charge for it.
Bottom line though, if it makes my Yoyo sleep ten times longer, I will take notice and at least drool over it.
Ahh, good. Once these puppies are for sale I hope that someone takes the time to create one with the specs of a C-size bearing.
Who the helleck would care about vibe if your yo-yo never stops sleeping?!
I agree with both of these comments. Particularly what Gambit says about all the forces acting on a yoyo that affect spin time. For that matter, how much difference does the ordinary average guy see with a ceramic bearing?
Sounds like we need some testing…
I agree. For just a simple sleep time test, I’d say there can be a couple minute difference between low and high end bearings. Testing completely clean versions of cheap bearings versus my high end ones, I’d say 6-8 minute sleepers on the low end, and 10 or so for high end bearings (with string manipulation).
But for actual usage, aka doing tricks, the difference in sleep time is negligible. Like has been mentioned, string rubbing the walls and response of the yoyo during tricks is the true limiting factor of spin time during tricks. At most, you can get a couple minutes out of a combo if you do tricks that don’t layer much string. Average combo times for clean/dry bearings of both low and high quality are typically around a minute with typical tricks. Which goes to show how much string rubbing affects spin times.
So, even a completely frictionless bearing still won’t yield ungodly combo lengths. The string will still rub the yoyo, and it will slow down in a pretty similar manner to current bearings. The real justification for high end bearings comes from consistency, smoothness, and quietness; plus specific shapes I guess.
Lastly, I don’t think there really needs to be any improvement on bearings for yoyos. It would get boring if 3 minute freestyles were only one throw (without regenerations, Ky Zizan’s(spelling?) routine was amazing). The only innovation I’d care to see is price reductions, so that you can get something that’s the quality of a Dif Ceramic KK for the price of a Spec bearing. Other than that, I don’t see much room for improvement, except in everybody’s bearing maintenance skills.
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Did you know that companies like yyf make bearings for like a buck…
Ummm, no they don’t. They buy them from a supplier.
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I would not mind a little vibe for a longer spin time if that was the case
I mean they get them from their suppliers for a buck or so
Yeah but could too if you bought 1,000’s at a time.
lol more like a quarter.
We should start a bearing co-op!
i feel like i remember a bunch of people trying to get a huge bearing group buy together maybe 7 years ago and becoming wildly depressed once they realized that with all the additional shipping they’d have to pay for, they’d be saving like 7 cents a bearing or something
but anyway yeah as other people said, the bearing isn’t close to the greatest source of friction in anything but a strict sleeper contest. once it starts moving around the string’s knockin off major RPMs every catch