# Electronic components: Buttons

> An introduction to push buttons in electronics: how they close a circuit only while pressed, how to place one across a breadboard, and light a LED with it.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2021-03-08 | Topics: [Arduino](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/electronics/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/electronics-components-buttons/

One useful component in our circuits is a button.

It connects two parts of a circuit when the button is pressed. As soon as the button is released, the circuit is open and the current can't circulate.

Here's a typical button:

![Black tactile push button component with four metal pins on wooden surface](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2899.jpg)

![Close-up view of black tactile push button showing the square body and pin arrangement](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2900.jpg)

It has 2 sets of connections that can be closed at the same time. The connections are
on the pins that are curved in the same way:

![Push button with blue arrows indicating the two pairs of connected pins on opposite corners](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2902.jpg)

There's one way to use this component in a breadboard, and it's to put it in the middle:

![Push button placed correctly across the center divider of a white breadboard](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2906.jpg)

and there's just one way to add it, you can't go wrong:

![Push button inserted into breadboard straddling the center gap between the two sides](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2907.jpg)

![Side view of push button properly seated across the breadboard center divider](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2905.jpg)

Then you can create a connection between 2 rows in the same part of the breadboard, like this:

![Complete circuit on breadboard with push button, red LED, resistor, and red jumper wires](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2897.jpg)

![Overhead view of breadboard circuit showing button, LED, resistor connected with red jumper wires](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2898.jpg)

In the above circuit, the LED will turn on only when the button is pressed:

![Breadboard circuit with glowing red LED showing the button is pressed and completing the circuit](https://flaviocopes.com/images/electronics-components-buttons/IMG_2909.jpg)