Okay, first off, what Yuki said. Also, even if the bearing does need to be cleaned, if it isn’t responsive and/or locking up, your throw needs a lot of work. You should start practicing your throw exclusively before you learn bad habits. After a few days going for strong sleepers using the advice in Andre’s videos, you should be able to squeeze quite a bit more out of your throws.
How long have you been at this? You don’t have that many messages on here yet. 27 as of this response. That doesn’t mean you are NEW to yoyo, but you are relatively new to here.
I remember when I started, things would tilt fast and I’d be lucky to get 20 seconds of sleep. Now, I can get darn near 3 minutes of sleep on most decent yoyos with a broken in bearing, PROVIDED my throw is decent.
My suggestion is work on that throw. I’ve been throwing just over 18 months now, and my throw STILL needs work. It’s constantly improving, but I can always get better. I even have yoyos that help me get that throw better too.
The Protostar is an amazing yoyo. Keep it. It’s as good as anything else on the market, and is probably one of the best plastics made ever. Work on that throw. Don’t just throw sleepers though, just pay more attention when you are throwing but also keep working on your tricks at the same time.
Keep at it. Don’t give up. Almost all of us have been there.
If your Protostar is tilting after just 10 seconds, I suspect it’s something to do with your throw. Either not straight or hard enough. Probably both. You’ll just have to practice