What is on the board · 01 of 9

The four pins

Four pins, and three of them are wired: GND, VCC and SIGNAL. VCC is the one to think about, because when the switch is on, whatever you feed VCC is the voltage your board's pin will see.

What is on the board

A 12 mm square push switch, two small resistors at the right-hand edge, a red LED under the switch, and a four-pin header along the bottom. The header is right-angled, so the pins point out past the edge of the board and the block lies flat in a breadboard or on a cable.

The TK05 seen from the switch side: a black board with a gold-plated border, a large square black push switch with a round button filling the top half, two small resistors stacked at the right-hand edge, a tiny LED below the switch, two big round mounting holes, lonely binary and LATCHING SWITCH printed up the left edge, a boxed ACTIVE HIGH at the right, and a right-angle header along the bottom labelled GND, VCC, NC and SIGNAL from left to right.
The switch side. GND is on the left, SIGNAL on the right.

The four names

The four pins
Pin
Pins
4
Pins to wire
3
Pitch
2.54 mm
SIGNAL is the other side of the switch. Off, the 10 kΩ pull-down holds it at 0 V and it reads LOW. On, the switch connects it to VCC and it reads HIGH, and the red LED on the same wire lights. The silkscreen says ACTIVE HIGH for that reason.

GND is the return path, on the square pad. Both resistors on the board end here.

VCC goes to one side of the switch and to nothing else on the board. The net list, which is the list of every electrical connection on the board, has exactly two entries for it: this pin and the switch.

NC means not connected, and here it means it literally. The net list does not mention it at all.

SIGNAL is the other side of the switch. A 10 kΩ resistor ties it to GND, and the red LED hangs off it too. Switch off, it reads LOW. Switch on, the switch connects it to VCC and it reads HIGH, and the LED lights. That is what ACTIVE HIGH on the front means.

VCC is the one to choose

On the XL LED you could leave the supply out, because there was none. Here VCC matters twice. It is the only thing that can make SIGNAL HIGH, so without it the block always reads LOW. And when the switch is on, SIGNAL is VCC, so the voltage you feed it is the voltage your board's input pin sees.

That makes the rule simple: VCC goes to your board's own logic supply. 3V3 beside an ESP32, an ESP32-S3 or a Pico. 5V on an Uno. Which supply to use shows what happens with the other choice.

The back of the board

The back of the TK05: a black board with a gold border, lonely binary across the top, the two gold pads where the switch's pins come through, a drawing of a switch, TK05 LATCHING BUTTON in a boxed label, four header pads in a row with the square one on the right, and PRESS TO TURN ON, PRESS AGAIN TO TURN OFF printed underneath.
The back. The part number is here, and the square pad is now on the right.

Turned over, the order reverses. The square pad is on the right, and it is still GND. The back is where the part number is printed, TK05, and the two lines under the header are the whole instruction manual for the switch.

When it does not work

Which pin is GND?

Hold the board with the switch facing you and the header pins pointing down. Read GND, VCC, NC, SIGNAL from left to right. GND is also the square pad, which is the one mark that survives when the block is in a breadboard and the labels are hidden.

Do I have to connect the NC pin?

No. It is not connected to anything on the board, on either side. It is there so every TinkerBlock block has the same four-pin header and the same cable fits all of them. Wiring it does no harm and changes nothing.

Can I leave VCC off, like on the XL LED?

No. On this block VCC is what the switch connects to SIGNAL. Without it, closing the switch connects SIGNAL to nothing, the pull-down keeps it at 0 V, and the sketch reads LOW whatever you do. The LED stays dark too, because it is powered from the same wire.

The back has no pin names. How do I tell which is which from there?

Turned over, the order reverses: SIGNAL is on the left and GND on the right, and GND is still the square pad. The back prints PRESS TO TURN ON and PRESS AGAIN TO TURN OFF instead of the names. Count from the square pad and you cannot get it backwards.

Where this goes next

Press on, press off, and why the button looks the same either way.

How it latches

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