Here is why you need to be product tester. I have multiple yoyos with near identical specs an what I notice is the bearing the engine that come with these yoyos totally needs a performance upgrade. I’m not going to point out or call out which brands totally fail me but it’s definitely more then one. Today I received my order from a yoyo brand that just keeps surprising me as being DOPE!!! I honestly want to mention it but for a while it’s a personal secret. What I’m going to say every other brand needs to do a far better job per say making sure they can deliver on longer performance bearings. Your reputation does matter. For the price being charged to get these yoyos it sucks to be let down because the bearing iis sluggish dies out to quick.
ok i gotta ask it’s killing me…why would you possibly choose to keep a secret what company you think is so vastly superior?
As you know every yoyo comes in parts but not all parts are equal or best. I’m just saying allot of the yoyo brands are not trying to hit the ball out of the park per say in all possible categories. Think about this in your own collection where you are like wow this yoyo is really scoring points. When it comes to listing the yoyo specs there should be mentioning grade of performance of the bearing. I have bought yoyos where the brand was mentioned like NKS but it’s rare with many brands to include names. I’m going to inquire by email regarding my latest purchase what’s making me so satisfied with the performance I’m having with the bearing that came with the yoyo. I actually received a extra bearing plus pads and strings. Eventually I’m going to reveal everything in a product review and the full comparison review. This might cause for other people to do the same comparison testing with the same yoyos, Something really necessary to discover things on their own if the purchase price was worth it.
Bearings are often bought by yo-yo companies from other manufacturers and then basically renamed or sold under their og name.
My experience with bearings has been great so far.
I never encountered any issues over the many years that I have been throwing apart from 3 incidents that were frankly disappointing.
I remember my first YYF was the Replay. Was super excited about finally owning the yoyo everyone was talking about (back when Gentry used it to win Worlds). To my surprise, the bearing was being responsive and the yo-yo wouldn’t spin for more than a few seconds. It was also so stuck in its seat I almost ruined the yoyo.
Of course, I reached out to the boutique that sold it to me and they offered to return it, but I kindly declined as it wasn’t that expensive and definitely not worth the hassle.
Then I got a Shutter, that felt so weak on the string until I swapped the bearing. Felt like a whole other beast of a yoyo.
I think it’s normal for bearings to age and require maintenance but it would be nice if QC would check them for any issues before selling any.
The kind of bearing that intrigues me the most would be the ceramic type. Paid the full price for a G2 one in hopes of having a cool feature on my yoyos. For some reason mine felt like a joke on the string compared to other unresponsive bearings. At times, it would play responsive annoyingly. I gave up on the idea of using it because I couldn’t risk ruining it with bad maintenance.
Anyone know why ceramic bearings are overhyped? What actual advantage am I getting?
The only advantage to ceramic bearings that I know of is that they do not rust. This makes them suitable for extreme environments. Unless you live in the equatorial tropics, I do not see any advantage in yo-yo applications. They are more expensive to make; so maybe people assume they are superior because of the price.
there is some truth to a ceramic bearing being better than steel or at least has the capacity to be made to a higher tolerance. Its partly where abec ratings come from. abec ratings typically refer to the precision of the bearings. a steel ball bearing is generally not a perfect sphere at the end of most manufacturing processes but the closer you get to perfect sphere, the higher the quality of the bearing. with ceramic, it is possible to manufacture bearings that are nearly or are perfect spheres compared to processes normally used for steel. note i am not an expert, this is just collected random info in my brain from something i read about bearings years ago when inline skates were still a thing…
I collected a few fidget spinners, quite a while ago. A lot of people were into finding the longest spin time. If i remember correctly, the ceramic bearings were never that great in the area of long spinning. Although, I never personally tried a ceramic bearing myself. BTW, most spinners use the same size C bearings as yoyos, although they go by R188 in the spinner world.