Long time lurker, first time poster! Hello everyone.
My horror story happened quite recently. I had bought a Ducky One keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches, and I wanted to replace the stock keycaps with a set of Dolch keycaps I had bought. Due to supply constraints, the only Ducky One keycap color I could get with Cherry MX Brown switches was the hideous lime green and white. It literally hurt my eyes to look at, but with new Dolch keycaps waiting in the wings, this could quickly be remedied.
The keycaps I intended to replace the ugly but quality double-shot dye sub PBT Ducky One keycaps with were made of double-shot ABS. Not quite as high a quality, IMHO, but a lot better than lime green and white!
So I set about removing the stock Ducky One keycaps. Using my wire keycap puller, which I've used countless times before, I set out to do the keycap removal. I got about half way through the board when, on the S key, the slider pulled out of the switch housing along with the keycap! I was mortified. I've never replaced switch springs or had the need to open up a switch to lube or anything, so it seemed like it was going to be quite daunting to put the slider back into the switch assembly.
So I checked YouTube and other online sources to find out how one goes about opening up a Cherry MX switch, and lacking the purpose-made tool, I set out to try using small jeweler's flat-blade screw drivers, as one guy had done on YouTube. What could go wrong?
Long story less long, I completely botched it, ruined the switch, and thus effectively ruined the keyboard. I never had a slider pull out of a switch before, and I don't yank on the keycap when I'm trying to pull it off, I give it a slight wiggle and slight pull pressure and off they come, easily. So it's still a mystery why this one particular one came out.
So the keyboard sits in the corner, broken, I guess I could desolder the switches or something, or even just desolder and re-solder one new Cherry MX brown switch to replace the broken one, but the thought of soldering on a keyboard is a bit more than I'm comfortable with, so I guess that keyboard is now dead to me.