I’ve bought many yoyos from YoYo Factory and other manufacturers. My question is how come yoyos from YYF come with different amounts of vibe? I’ve bought 4 different OG Shutters, and 5 different Horizons and they all came with varied amounts of vibe. Some were smooth and some had too much vibe. I would like to not have to buy multiple versions of the same yoyo just to test them out for an hour to find the right halves and right axle for them to be smooth. I just bought an Orbital GTX from Duncan, it’s bimetal so I’m not suprised it has vibe. It has Pulsing Vibe and I’ve heard pulsing vibe is something to be concerned of. Nothing much I can do, I switched out a bunch of axles and bearings, flipped them around. It will continue to have Pulsing vibe unless if I buy more of the same yoyo to find a good other half. Anyone with the same issues? Hope people can talk to me about it, thanks
YYF has a bit lower standard for quality control to keep with their cheaper prices. Thus they arent known for being the smoothest out there. If you receive a yoyo with considerable vibe instead of buying another of the same and switching halves(Ive never heard anyone else do this to get a smooth yoyo) you can contact the retail store you got it from or even YYF amd Im sure they will make it right. I would say some vibe is expected.
On a side note, if you are a newer thrower just throw the
yoyo and touch your nail to the rim of the yoyo. If the vibe persists its the yoyo if it doesn’t your throw was wonky👍🏼
Too long, didn’t read: So the causes of vibe are a unique combination of many things. Some is due to suboptimal building materials. Some from poorly calibrated or operated CNC machines. Some from poor assembly. And some is from “artisan anodize marks” 
I kid, I kid.
Long winded version:
Vibe - everyone’s favorite discussion topic! Most people are simply going to tell you to ignore it and just “enjoy” the yoyo as is. But that advice ignores your question.
There’s a big long discussion post about it worth a read.
But this topic is super subjective, so here’s my “hot take”…
In order to have a “vibe free” yoyo (or any spinning object really), two basic things are required. Weight must be uniformly distributed (or adequately counter balanced) around a rotational axis and both yoyo halves and the bearing must all be on “parallel planes”. When either one of the 2 things are off you will experience “vibe”. It’s worth noting there’s really no agreed upon standard defintion of vibe as everyone’s perception seems to differ so I can only go with my own interpretation.
Weight imbalance will generally be described as “pulsing” vibe. Non parallel planes will generally be described as “fingernail” vibe (and more easily seen as a wobble). But it’s not a case of either/or; realistically, you will probably have some combination of the two thus giving every yoyo a unique feel.
Equal weight distribution generally is not an issue with modern CNC’d metal yoyos because metal is typically extremely uniform in density and CNC machines (if calibrated and operated correctly) are extremely accurate. Now, if you “ding” a yoyo and consequently redistribute mass that’s a different situation.
But I have found the cause of most “vibe” to be related to the second issue about stuff not being on “parallel planes”.
Ideally your yoyo should look like this: |-| Two yoyo halves meeting the bearing and forming a perfect ‘H’ shape. However what often happens is the halves meet the side of the bearing at ever so slightly an angle. A few exagerrated examples: |-\ or /-/ or /-\. Please note I’m trying to illustrate the bearing being the thing not in parallel here not the halves themselves but ascii art is limited. Several things can cause this including (but not limited to): not screwing the yoyo together tight enough for the bearing to be forced to sit flush in the bearing seat, gunk/debris in the bearing seat preventing it from sitting flush, bearing seat post being too large for the bearing’s inner diameter preventing it from sitting flush.
If the bearing and at least one yoyo half meet at any angle greater then 0 degrees you will experience some fingernail vibe. This is because the shape of the yoyo is no longer symmetrical as it spins. As it spins, part of the shape extends out farther and touches your fingernail, |-/
. As it rotates more the shape doesn’t extend as far and does not touch your finger |-\. If a yoyo spins at say 5,000 rpm (just a guess) then it repeatly is coming into and out of contact with your fingernail. This type of vibe will usually get more pronounced as the diameter of the yoyo increases or the angle increases depending on where you are checking for fingernail vibe – like near the axle versus the rims.
“Tuning” yoyos (flipping the axle and other voodoo nonsense) is largely a myth except it forces you to do one thing over and over, disassemble and reassemble the yoyo. This basically just increases the likelihood the planes will be brought closer to parallel because you’ve done something in the dis/re-assembly process to make the bearing sit more flush. As an extreme example, in another post I described how I experimented and ultimately removed the vibe in a b-grade yoyo by shaving down the bearing posts with a pair of pliers until the bearing sat flush. Crude but effective.
Anyway, where was I? Right, artisan anodize marks…
New yoyos should not have a pulsing vibe. Contact the store you got it from and return/exchange it. You do not have to buy extra yoyos to fix a problem with a brand new yoyo, Duncan or whichever store you buy from should take care of it for you.
Thank you very much I’m stupid to never think about contacting them lol, thanks a lot
Thank so much I didn’t think I could return yoyos. So I ordered it from yoyoexpert, do I just send them an email through their website or something?
That makes sense I have noticed defintely that how tightly you screwly the yoyo will affect its vibe. Thanks for the reply
Yeap, just do that. They will take great care of you!
As long as it doesn’t smooth out when you run your finger on it then there is something to be concerned about.
I’ll note that my duncan’s all generally had some fingernail vibe and were not glass smooth.
Yoyofriends and g2 have been the smoothest to be.
Yes.
As a manufacturer Smooth YoYos are easy to make. They just cost labor and scrap.
We only shipped 10/10 for years. It almost sent us broke. In that time the community decided fancy anodize was maybe more important. We liked that idea too! In the end we found a spot where we found an acceptable range, in a favorable price situation. We occasionally put out a 10/10 run and tbh no one notices. It’s a very nuanced thing with zero impact on performance. So we focus on performance and value backing it up with warranty and customer service because sometimes things do go wrong.
Vibe is .002 it’s precision greater than most aerospace requirements. It’s also induced with one careless throw into the ground, some hamfisted yo-yo assembly or forgetting what pocket your yo-yo is in and sitting on it. Very few vibe free yo-yo ever stay that way for their whole lives, unless you don’t play with them, which is unusually common for some connoisseurs.
That’s kinda of a dirty secret and something rarely talked about. It’s why competitiors don’t go through boxes looking for the smoothest yo-yo, soon enough they all end up playing the same … and that’s ok.
i have a hard time believing every yoyoer has a fully carpeted (or grass) house… and even then, you’ll pick up nicks, scuffs and vibe hitting the carpet or rug.
you can’t get blood from a stone. expectations should be realistic, and an understanding of what those are should be clear between the parties ahead of time. no
big whoop.
I think this is so important, it needs to be highlighted. Just throwing the yoyo and having it vibe, is most likely your throw. If you touch it, it should smooth out. Only if it still vibes at that point, is there an issue.
It’s sounds like maybe you’re beyond that point, or aware of that already, but still worth mentioning, if only for others.
Also would explain the orbital since it’s bimetal. Since there’s a lot more rim weight it will amplify vibe off a bad throw.
Vibe also has a lot to do with the axle alignment. Make sure the halves are as straight as possible when screwing in. Also try flipping the axle around
Sometimes you may also need to troubleshoot “mass-produced” yoyos first as well. Things to check before fully determining it’s a manufacturing flaw would be.
- Remove and re-seat the bearing
- Check to make sure the axle is properly centered
- Make sure it wasn’t cross-threaded when assembled
- Change the bearing to a known “good” bearing to make sure you didn’t get a dud bearing.
This doesn’t always fix every issue, but you’d be surprised by how often one little mishap in assembly can affect a brand new yoyo. Sometimes there are some that do have major manufacturing flaws that slip through CQ checks also. Generally most yoyos are pretty good through.
I have 5 Duncan Orbital GTX’s. The first 2 are the 90th anniversary ones from 2019. Both are totally smooth. I picked up a blue with rainbow rims and it has a tiny bit of finger nail vibe. Later got a pink with rainbow rims, and it instantly stripped putting it back together. Only the second yoyo I’ve ever had strip out of 150+ (other was a MagicYoyo N12 Christmas Edition). I hit up Duncan, and they basically told me to go pound sand. I manged to make it playable by forcing it together with a 10mm axle instead of the 8mm that it comes with. I loved the color of the pink one so much I decided to give it another go and bought a second off ebay. That one is like the blue one with just a little bit of finger nail vibe.
I think some vibe on new cheaper yo-yos is to be expected due to the manufacturing process of different materials.
On the other hand, the more I spend, the less vibe I feel is acceptable on a new yo-yo. If I spend over 50 dollars and there’s noticeable vibe then I’m going to feel ripped off.