Ceramic bearings, yay or nay
 

are they just a sales thing? just wondering if many people use them in off road buggies etc, makes sense to have everything as free rolling as possible, but at what cost?

Ceramic bearings are great in the drive train but as they get beaten up / gritty on the axles quickly its alot more cost effective to just replace with normal bearings.

Way better although not a must if that makes sense

They used to be when we were limited on duration, but with today batteries it’s not so important.

cheers guys, will just keep on with my normal maintenance and replacing of normal bearings then

You only ever really need ceramic bearings in a situation of high temperatures or when you need electrical isolation. A good set of Abec A rated bearings are just as good, if not better than ceramic bearings for our applications.

just use std and buy em from rcbearings.co.uk and replace them when gritty for what they cost

No better, unless you run them without proper contact seals and on light oil.

So no good for anywhere dirty as you'll drag grit/dust into the bearing and destroy the races (unless you buy full ceramics, $$$$) they'll need cleaning regularly as well.

Get a bearing with seals (2RS for example) and the drag is almost all caused by the seals and lubricant, the actual bearing/races drag is tiny. So again, ceramics make little or no sense, except they'll last longer.

As everyone else says, get decent "normal" bearings.

(i spent a good chunk of a former life reviewing tests of ceramic bearings of many types against various steel bearings in dozens of configurations and sizes, the application in question still uses steel bearings across the board.)

I find they don't move like standard bearings when they wear, slops a problem for some cars and I use just for that reason but like the guys say just regular cleaning with gt85 (not wd40) and an oil drop or two with 10wt will after the clean will make them last some time.