Hi.
Can any of you explain to me why O rings were abandoned for use as response pads? Was it simply that everybody just went with Kentaro’s 19mm response?
I had an Auldey unresposive with O rings once, and they seemed to work well.
Maybe you know, @yoyodoc?
Black o rings left the string dirty. And lots of people modded them by cutting them down flush with the surface of the yoyo
Adding on to this, the o rings became less reliable with the widening gaps at the time as far as I can remember.
Using silicone in place of the o rings was pretty common practice before it was a standardized response system. It was just more consistent for totally unresponsive play.
Less reliable with widening gaps because they weren’t responsive enough to binding?
i think it was more that gaps were narrower on average when orings came into play at first and they stuck out from the wall of the yoyo into the gap like a response bump, but rubber… So modders cut them down to be less responsive in a narrower gap that might only be adjustable by unscrewing the yoyo a little and hoping the threadlock would hold ( i’m referring to yoyojam really). I suppose cutting it flat does make a larger contact patch on the string as a flat surface rather than a round one so when making the gap wider this might be helpful in getting better grip on a bind. But that’s just how i observe it, i may be wrong.
interesting idea. maybe a little less responsive than say a flat pad when its recessed… but also the kind of material for the oring could be stickier too…
I think this should work reliably well, I don’t like the sound of it making the string dirty though.
I just want to get a good understanding as to why they were abandoned.
Curious on how recessing a full oring into the cup affects weight distribution? I imagine you need more center weight/Material in this area to support the oring?
I have a feeling part of the reason may stem around this concept. Especially when the focus of design ideas moved to maximum rim weight.
Also, there were red/orange orings also. Not just the black.
Yes. Not huge amounts, but enought to make hub design trickier.
I know. Not as easy to find in this exact size though.
@Augie, @unklesteve, @AndreBoulay,
You’ve been around a long time on the scene. Can any you please give more detail as to why O rings for response were abandoned?
o-rings tend to dry rot. almost all my oxygenes had some form of dry rot. and, they were impossible to find replacements. i have one set of clean oxygene orings stashed away somewhere. even on the ywets they would break down as opposed to break in.
this is an independent opinion.
Thanks. Fortunately if I ever use them, they will be standard sized ones readily available at hardware stores.
I think should get an old school YYJ and some shims and play around with gap width, o-rings vs silicone, and form your own opinion on this.
AFAIK it was just a happy coincidence that silicone gaskets in champagne stoppers matched up with bearings from pneumatic hand tools. If it wasn’t so important for everyone to carry a refillable water bottle, we’d have much less choice of pad sizes and the cost would still be ridiculous.
Twenty years ago nitrile rubber was the standard and silicone was expensive, but there’s plenty of choice for o-ring material now. Silicone is just as easy to find online as rubber.
Back when I was throwing a DM I used the green rubber o-rings, can’t remember what that type is called but they’re still around. As far as dirty string goes, probably, but my hand washing routine wasn’t anything to brag about and I broke my DM five times, so it was regularly stripped down and cleaned to be glued back together
The black orings that came stock in yoyojams were neoprene but they make orings the same size in different materials. I have red silicone, in the past I’ve used clear silicone orings. When the first starfire came out I had black installed and red ones in the box. Players realized the sweet spot for orings was when they were flat, which caused some to cut them. I believe Dave Geigel sold flat silicone orings. Orings as a response was patented by yyj modders were already experimenting with filling the oring slot with silicone. Which evolved into other companies making yo-yos with flowable silicone. It’s not so bad if you’re only doing one or two yo-yos but when you have a whole batch of a few hundred yoyo halves than you have to try and maintain consistency and not make much of a mess while siliconing them. So to make manufacturing easier companies adopted the silicone pads pioneered by Kentaro.
I think it was largely because silicone simply played better.
Other than that though, I’m not sure if YYJ had a patent or patent pending, or if there was no actual IP protection, though I feel like I remember the other reason being that it was a “YYJ thing”.
When you say "played better’ do you mean silicone gripped better for binds?
Yeah, not just gripped better for binds, but silicone in general is much smoother on the string IMO.
I also vaguely remember o rings playing more temperamentally in comparison, such as getting grabbier in high humidity environments like at Orlando worlds.
I don’t know how much it actually contributed to silicone being more prominent, though mod culture was still relatively prominent then, plus tons of people made their own pads. It was fun to try the different colors/types of flowable silicone, as well as try everyone’s different proprietary pads.
Yo-Yo Mods look sick!.. I shouldn’t have been born in 2009…
