Thread: What is the formal or technical name for a switch you hit once and it stays on until it completes an action?

A momentary switch

I am specifically thinking of a spring loaded toggle switch in a media room that you hit up to raise the screen and hit down to lower the screen.
Yes! Thanks.

Momentary contact switch is what you are describing. Usually there is other circuitry, such as a relay, that continues to apply the power until a limit condition is reached.

In your example, the momentary contact closes the relay, which holds itself closed via a contact. Another contact starts the motor. When the screen reaches it's limit, a limit switch opens the relay.

Another relay and limit switch handles the down motion.

This is often referred to as a "latching circuit" and is done by the controls wired to the switch not the switch on its own.

In conventional electrics, the momentary switch or push button causes a relay (contactor) to close that has a contact to "latch" it in until a limit switch opens (unlatches) it The relay drives the motor. This needs a separate button and relay for the lower function (reversing the motor).

An electronic circuit using only one switch would be a flip flop.

That is what is called a "PUSH TO ON AND PUSH TO OFF SWITCH"