Laser Bear Industries is proud to present a new solution to damaged clicky sticks on the Neo Geo CD controller pads: https://www.laserbear.net/products/neogeo-cd-clicky-pad-repair-kit
These original pads used a tactile button that is no longer being produced in a size that is no common so there are no off the shelf replacements for them when they start to fail.
In the past you could get more life out of them by spraying in contact cleaner and actuating the button to release the built up dust inside the button, some people even disassemble the button to clean them even further, but this only proves to be a temporary solution that will eventually have you back inside to repeat the process.
I set out a long time ago to resolve this issue by making a replacement part that allows the use of off the shelf buttons that can easily be sourced in the event of a failure down the road. These new buttons are ratted for over 100,000 cycles and should last for years to come. This involved a dissection of the mechanism and redesign to accommodate off the shelf buttons namely a 6x6x5mm tactile button. another issue that I ran into is the way the original button was actuated, the internal actuators relied on a spring to tension against the button and would depress the button before the actuator made contact with that button. It took careful calibration of the parts in this kit to obtain the same results ultimately requiring Laser Bear to invest in higher end resin printers to achieve the desired outcome.
A full video install guide walks you through the install process.
These kits can be found at Laser Bear Industries They come with the tactile buttons and the resin printed parts required to complete the installation on a single pad.