I don’t know anything about ceramic bearings. All I know is that they exist, and someone said something about not lubing them. Is ceramic a genuine replacement to stainless steel? Idk
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They are nice and some may argue spin longer.
In my experience I am not good enough to get the full potential out of stainless steel, so even if ceramic spun longer, it would be a waste of cash for me.
Ceramic is more fragile. I’d recommend if you were interested in them, to get a stainless steel with ceramic internals, I believe they call them hybrids. I have one that I enjoy a lot, but again, I doubt I’m getting the full potential out of any bearing.
Improving ones strength and precision in their throw would do far more than a bearing upgrade in my opinion.
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The basics are that you don’t lube them, they are very loud, they give a very small improvement in spin time which get’s better the heavier the yoyo is in my experience.
Ceramic is very hard and that means it doesn’t compress much, it also has a low coefficient of friction. The side effect of not compressing is that ceramic will keep it’s shape but shatters when pushed beyond it’s stress point.
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You wont break a ceramic bearing unless you bash it with a hammer.
I might not be able to reach the full potential of a cermic bearing, but they feel nice and sound good (if you like louder) i can notice a difference… i recently tried lotus and they are good as well. Hybrids are great too. I suggest mazal top.
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A lot of them come as flat bearings if I am not mistaken mazal was the only concave ceramic out there . I could be wrong on that . I have one flat bearing ceramic and honestly don’t notice a difference . I like the idea of it more than anything.
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Overpriced hype, similar to gold plated bearings.
Parts is parts…
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You can get a concave one from aliexpress.
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Luftverk sells a full ceramic that I think is concave. @kretzschmar pointed out that if you’re not consuming all your spintime, it’s kind of a waste if you’re hoping to get more. But…just like the luxury of owning a Ti throw, sometimes it’s fun to just try a ceramic bearing in your favorite throw to see how it changes (mostly the sound). If you’re hoping for something smoother than steel, ceramic doesn’t seem to make that difference, but Lotus bearings somehow do that.
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Ive also dropped a cermic bearing from that height and nothing. But mine is a mazal top and concave. Is that a cheap flat bearing from alibaba or something?
(Regardless i guess i have to changs my original comment)
Mazeltop yoyos on Instagram does amazing work with these. The best argument for them is that when they get crusty and responsive as some unshielded bearings do, you take it to the sink and wash with soap to get em playing like brand new.
This is value enough, that if your edc starts being crusty you don’t have to wait to get home and go thru the rigamaroo of using solvent. I’ve got a few and they still get use alongside my double cut bearings cuz of this.
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that is the original bearing that came with the Jazz-Yo The Shield … I don’t know where they came from … but, cheap or not … it broke … to a steel bearing, even the cheapest of bad quality, such a thing would never happen, this is because the need for materials, such as ceramic, has many advantages but can also become a weak point … a sapphire glass is unscratchable but if it takes a well-aimed blow it will not horsehair like plexiglass or normal glass … it shatters into billions more of the particles (for this reason the Rolexes were discarded by NASA for the lunar missions, in favor of the Omega with plexy glass) … the same thing goes for ceramics , very hard and rigid, towards metals (which have a more elastic molecular shape, just think of their ability to increase or decrease in volume in relation to thermal stresses) … when they have to cope with and absorb mechanical stresses, such as bumps, compressions, etc.
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the thing that has always left me perplexed about full ceramic is the cage that holds the spheres in place and that you can also see in the photo … it is made of a rubbery material (it cannot be metallic as a full ceramic is born to work in environments where there are strong magnetic fields and therefore the materials with which it is made must not be affected) … the elastic or rubbery polymers, with time and thermal variations tend to harden, oxidize and therefore deteriorate … in my opinion this is the real weak point of full ceramic
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The ball bearings themselves, yes, because they’re typically made of silicon nitride. I actually had a fun demo of this in my Phase Equilibria in Materials class. Prof had me take a silicon nitride ball bearing and smack it into a block of steel with a hammer. It left a perfectly spherical indentation with no damage to the ball bearing.
Now the inner/outer races and cage are a different story.
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at this point i am surprised that they have not tried titanium bearings yet
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Sochi concave ceramic bearings are available. Sold right here in the YYE shop.
I have one. I don’t think it’s really any better, or worse, than similar metal bearings. They have very simple maintenance and last a while. Price is a factor though. You could get 2 DS bearings for the price of one ceramic.
kgb
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Forget any interest I had in ceramic bearings. Nothing anyone could say could convince me to spend more than $40 on a single bearing, stainless steel works just fine. Thank you for your time everyone.
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The mazaltop bearings are about 15-16 bucks . In regards to titanium bearings I believe that titanium and titanium together will eventually mend together over time. I could be wrong thought I read that somewhere
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I have a ceramic hybrid (ceramic ball) bearing thats about 10 years old. It doesn’t spin great, tried cleaning it, just made it louder. I used it a lot back in the day but my old difeyo concaves that are just as old are much better in comparison.
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This is true, that’s why Ti yoyos don’t use Ti axles. They will weld together over time.
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