So, a while back Da5id asked me if a small bearing makes a relevant difference on how a yoyo plays. I thought about it for a bit, then I thought about it a bit more. Next, I wrote down my thoughts and provided them to One Drop for discussion. As we usually like to share around these parts I decided to make the discussion available to the One Drop community, in typical Area 51 fashion.

Unfortunately, the forum software here is not conducive to presenting technical information that contains a smattering of images, equations, and diagrams. Therefore, I have converted the the discussion into a .pdf file and placed it on a file sharing site for all the forum users to see (I sure hope the sharing thing works!).

Please note before you click on the link below that the paper has not been spell-checked, grammar-checked, or proof read for complete technical rigor and correctness, but it should be close!

Without further ado, I give you the first technical look at the differences between small and large bearings from Area 51!

CLICK HERE

db

Edit: I've already noticed a missing image in the paper...consider this a work in progress, I'll update the paper as I get time...

Thanks for the wonderful insight DB!
This is a subject I've been curious about.. and you do a wonderful job of explaining such a scientific and technical subject in terms most yoyoers can understand.

I remember seeing the picture of the 'told-you' (brilliant name!) some months back. I never imagined this is what it was used for.. cool!

Side note about page 6 (in the 'Yoyo Principal Axes' box)---- for some reason, I looked next to figure 8, read the label, and thought about having a large wood-chopping device with a yoyo engraved on the blade... silly me

can't explain how useful was that!
I made a design a while back, and I wanted it with small bearing, but people told me that it's a bead idea... after reading that I don't think I could make a decision...

Nice work

Now write about the difference in the throw.. I'm curious to see how you approach it, I've found there is something a lot of people who have attacked that question miss..

Kyle

So in other words, the closer the bearing can get to the axis of momentum, the more stable the yoyo is? But what about spin speeds to ball sizes, length of spin time and speed degradation based on ball size, and the fact that I need to go look for my bearing book... Where is that engineering manual...