Anyone play with a dry bearing?

Isn’t this the preferred method to turn any modern yoyo into a fixed axle? (Well, technically a transaxle?) :grin:

Well pontificated!

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I find comfort in the fact that you at the very least; read my warning.

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Be assured, I read the entire missive and I enjoyed it. :smiley:

Run 'em dry and let 'em sing.

Sometimes. Not when it’s raining.

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These are yoyos not engines. The stresses to yoyo bearings are minuscule. Run them dry. Clean with air. Nothing attracts dirt better than lube.

Well, actually yes and no…

Dry bearings constitute a perfect recipe for generating friction of all component parts. Friction combined with associated speed generates a low grade static field. A static field will attract any ‘charged particles’ within the range of the static field. So technically a bearing will get dirty regardless.

the japan made NSK bearings are designed to run dry. super smooth and quiet. i run my draupnir’s with those bearings. i have the ds version available here at YYE in 2 other yoyos and i run those dry. smooth and quiet. they get noisy when a string thread gets in there, blow it off, put it back in and ready to go. that would be a lot worse with lube.

It’s not so much dry, it’s lube it/clean when it makes noise.

Noisy can mean too dry, and damage possible.

I tend to keep this simple.

I prefer 100% dry. I don’t like even a hint of responsiveness. I’m willing to put up with the little bit of noise and wearing out bearings faster. To clean them I just wait until I have a couple that need cleaning then toss them in a little jar full of acetone, shake em around a little, put them on the tip of a pencil and blast them with canned air. I know some people disagree with canned air, but I’ve never had a problem with condensate, as long as the can is relatively full. Seems like most of the condensate comes out as the can is getting empty. Another approach to drying them might be to put silica gel dessicant packs into another jar and drop the bearings in there. It would take longer but they’d get dry as a bone.

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exactly. thank you

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I much prefer to play with a dry axle.

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Lol

I use carb and choke cleaner. Run my bearings dry and never lube them. I’ve had some bearings over 10yrs using them like this and no problems. Regular and ceramic.

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edit- MykMyk already posted my video showing how to use the dry lube, removed redundant post, and Thanks MykMyk!

Big Bang Bandalores makes a great dry lube too.

Dry or almost dry for me, depends on the sound.

Huh, it seems im an oddball i like to lube the hell out of my bearings until those puppies give me a nice hum instead of any grinding whatsoever, its not about performance, I can throw harder and regen if i wanna combo for days so spin time doesnt mean as much to me. Now, i like bearings that whir even but i hate any grinding sound whatsoever and when you have metal on metal it takes some work to make that sound go away, and by then my bearings hum for me rather than sing

So you like to play responsive?