Redstone: Basics

Hey guys! Let’s talk about something most Minecraft players find terribly convoluted and complicated. It’s all about this little block right here…

Redstone is perhaps one of the coolest feature within Minecraft. Or at least the most intricate. Let’s start this from square one.

You can find the redstone ore block (in the above picture if you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about) anywhere at y level 16 and below. Below y level 14 it composes approximately 1% of all the stone and on average about 25 bits of this ore exist per chunk. It is also partially luminescent, which makes it one of two naturally occuring blocks that give off light (one of 4 if you count lava and torches as blocks). However, this luminescence only occurs when the block is touched by the player or another mobs, such as punching hitting or stepping on the block. The amount of light given off is light level 9, which is just enough to stop hostile mobs from spawning, however, this block will stop glowing after a small period of time, so they are not a viable way of preventing monsters from spawning. When mined with an iron pickax (or better) it will yield four to five piles (more if you’ve got a enchanted pick) ofredstone dust, which is the next step in the redstone circuit. See what I did there?

Redstone dust looks like this:

Redstone dust can be placed and will look different depending on what’s connected to it. Here are some pictures showing the different ways redstone can look:

As you can see redstone tries to maintain an easy to follow shape. However in more complicated machines it can be easy to get lost. This guide will only cover the basics and the more complicated things will be covered in a later portion. Redstone dust placed in a series like in the above pictures it is often called a redstone wire.

Now, redstone needs power in order to do anything. As you can see in the above pictures it’s very dark and dim. This is it’s unpowered state. In order to power a redstone wire you must have some sort of power input. One of the simplest ways of doing this is by crafting a redstone torch.

This can be done in a similar manner to crafting regular torches, instead of using coal though, use the redstone dust. This does not yield the same number of torches the the regular recipe. Instead of yielding four torches, it will only give one. This redstone torch will give off a dim light (light level 7) which is not enough to prevent monsters from spawning. To make up for the expense of this item versus the low amount of light, this is one of the only ways to power redstone, and the only way to constantly supply power to a circuit.

To power a redstone wire or circuit you must simply place a redstone torch next to any redstone dust or redstone repeater (more about those later). Here is an example picture.

As you can see the redstone is now much brighter. It will actually now give off a very small amount of light. This is what is referred to as it’s powered state, and can now be used to do many things. But as you can also see the amount of light and the brightness of the wire does slowly dim. Here’s another picture that you can see this effect more clearly.

As you can see in the above picture the redstone slowly gets dimmer. This is an easy way to tell how strong your current currently is. However the strength of the current does no affect it’s ability to function. It just shows you how much longer you can go before you need to strengthen your signal again. A signal from any power source can only travel up to 15 blocks before the signal is no longer strong enough to do anything, or the wire returns to it’s unpowered state.  This can be done in one of two ways.

This first way is a little more ‘old school’ and requires use of what is commonly called an inverter, or anot-gate (one of the many logic gates, that will also be covered in a later section). It is crafted by placing a single block down (commonly used blocks include wool, cobblestone, stone and sand) and having the wire that needs to be strengthened (or extended) touching one side of the block and a redstone torch placed on the opposite side like in the picture below.

The example shows two blocks used, but only one is necessary. Also, the redstone wire on top of the block is not necessary, when using only one block. As you can see the wire coming into the circuit (from the right) is unpowered and the wire coming out is powered. This is why this particular extender is called a inverter, because it will invert the signal. This can be useful in more complicated machinery and circuits, but to return the wire to the state it entered the extender, you would simply need another inverter facing the same direction. This set up is cheaper than it’s alternative, but takes up 2 blocks (1 block for the block used, and another for the torch, and a total of 4 blocks if you want to invert the power a second time to return it to the original state it entered).

The alternative, a redstone repeater, also sometimes referred to as a diode, can also extend a signal, and also has a few other uses. It can be seen below.

This nifty little device is a little more practical to extend a signal, but is a little more expensive than the other option. It costs three stone, two redstone torches and one redstone dust. To craft it place the redstone dust in the middle of the crafting table. Then place the redstone torches on either side of the dust. Finally place the three stone under each of the torches and the redstone dust. Now you should have a redstone repeater ready for use. The placement of this block is similar to the placements of beds. The direction you’re facing will be the direction the repeater will go. You can see an arrow on it in the above picture that is point the way it will move the current.

This is used the same way the above extender was. You simply put the charged wire in the back end (the way the arrow isn’t pointing) and then more wire on the other end (the way the arrow is pointing). This will now return the power of your wire on the other end to full strength for another 15 blocks. Another cool feature of this is the delay.

If you right click on the repeater after placing it you can see on of the two torches move slightly. This increases very slightly the delay of the signal. Think of it kind of like a stop light in traffic. Once the car (or current) reaches it, it must stop until the light turns green (until the delay is up). This isn’t particularly useful while extending wire but comes in handy with more complicated circuits. Each click will cycle it through one of four settings. The first setting will delay the circuit by only one tick, the second for two, the third for three, and the fourth for four. Each tick is about one tenth (1/10) of a second.

Now, let’s say you don’t constantly want the circuit to be powered or on. That’s why we have some other useful cool ways to put power into a system. Like one you saw earlier, the pressure plate.

The pressure plate comes in two varieties, wood and stone. The wooden pressure plate is craft with two wooden planks placed side by side. While the stone pressure plate is crafted using two stone placed side by side. These two devices can be seen below.

These devices may only be places on top of a block. Now in order to activate these you can stand on either one of them. Also, with the wooden pressure plates you can drop an item onto it the active it as well. The choice of which one you want to use is entirely up to you. Usually for traps a stone pressure plate is used, because it can not be activated by an item, ensuring that you do have a victim. However, the wooden plate is a little cheaper, and will still work to make traps. In order to send power from the plate into a redstone wire they must be on the same level and adjacent (or connected) to the plate, or the redstone wire must be under the block that the pressure plate is placed on.

This device is excellent for traps and opening doors, but will only supply power when they are pressed down. As soon as the item or entity on the pressure plate moves, they will stop sending power. This is similar to the way or next input works, called the button.

The button is crafted by placing two stone blocks on top of each other. The button when placed resembles a small stone rectangle and can only be placed on the side of a block (not the top or bottom). Here is an example:

When pressed (by simply clicking on it) the button will released a small burst of power, lasting for only a brief period of time before resetting.  This can be useful to have a dispenser dispense items, shoot arrows, potions, or fire charges. Some common uses include primitive turrets to shoot fire charges, arrows, or harmful potions at potential threats, it can be used to dispense helpful or buff potions creating a ‘buff machine’, or even as a ‘refrigerator’ the will give food whenever the button is pressed. It is also used in more complicated machines and circuits because of it’s ‘short burst’ nature, to prevent a circuit from overloading.

In order to send power from a button into a wire, simply have the wire connect to any side of the block that the button is placed on. Now let’s move onto our final power input.
The lever is perhaps the cheapest power input to make, costing only one cobblestone and one stick. Simply place the stick in the square directly above the cobblestone and you have yourself a lever. This can be placed on any side of the block, with the exception of the bottom. Here we can see a placed lever:

The lever once placed can be flipped on or off. When the lever is on it will constantly supply power. When turned off it will not send power until turned on. This input is commonly used in more simple circuits because of it’s nature. It can be used to open doors remotely, open water or lava flows, as well as activating pistons. To send power from this input you can connect the wire to any side of the block, similar to the button. This is commonly avoided in more complicated machines because if the power is left constantly on, it can affect the timing.

Now, we know all this cool stuff about redstone, but what can you do with it? Well I’ve mentioned a few things already but here’s are some devices that can be powered by redstone. Let’s start with one you all have used before, the door.

Above you can see two types of door. One the left we have the common wooden door, that can be activated by hand or by redstone. To activate this door with redstone simply have the wire go directly into the door, or into the block underneath the door.

On the right we have the more expensive (but more secure)  iron door. The iron door is crafted in the same way as a regular door, but can only be opened by a redstone current, or TNT I suppose, but I don’t think that’s opening so much as blowing a massive hole in somebody’s work (DISCLAIMER: MinecraftPortal.net does condone the use of TNT for opening your door or anybody else’s. We are not liable for personal harm or bans from griefing).

The iron door can be supplied with power in the same way as a wooden door. Like I said before it can only be opened by redstone, and cannot be opened by hand by any player (unless they’re OP). This door is more secure because of this, and if that isn’t enough of an argument, it also can not be bashed down by zombies like it’s wooden counterpart. Moving on.

Our next device is called the dispenser. This is craft with seven cobblestone, one bow, and one redstone. Place the bow in the center of your crafting table, the redstone under the bow, and then fill the other squares with cobble. The dispenser shoots items similar to the way a player can throw them on the ground. However there are a few exceptions. It will fire arrows, potions and fire charges (as mentioned before) and will spawn mobs if a spawn egg is fire. The latest snapshot also added the ability for dispensers to place boats and minecraft onto water and rails respectively. Below we can see one.

The dispenser will face towards the player when placed and can receive power from any of the sides. If activated with a button it will only shoot once when the button is pressed, and will only shoot once when activated with a redstone torch, either pressure plate or a lever.  In order to fire again you can press the button again, get the item or entity off the plate and then back on, flipped the lever off then on again, or break and replace the redstone torch. As you can see the button is the easiest way to fire a second time which is why it is more commonly used for dispensers.

Our next device is called a piston and it comes in two varieties.

The first is the regular piston, or simply piston and can been seen on the far right in its two states,extended and closed. The regular piston will simply push a block when extended. This piston can be crafted with four cobble, three wooden planks, an iron ingot and a piece of redstone dust. To craft first place the wooden planks across the top row of the crafting table. Then place the iron ingot in the center square. Place the redstone dust beneath the iron ingot, then fill the remaining four squares with cobblestone.

The piston, like most redstone devices will change the direction it faces depending on how the player is standing or looking at it when placed. Usually the piston will attempt to face towards the player. It can be placed like any other block and can be placed anywhere. The piston as I mentioned before can push blocks. It can push any block with the exception of bedrock, obsidian and the ender crystals. When powered the piston will extend pushing up to 12 blocks at a time. This device is commonly used to block a water stream in farms for harvesting.

The second kind of piston called a sticky piston can be see on the left in the above picture in its two states. This is crafted with a regular piston and slime ball. Simply put the regular piston in your crafting grid then place the slime ball directly above the piston. This device works similar to it’s brother, but when power is removed after it is extended, it will pull only one block back with it. This is commonly used to create secret doors.

So far we’ve seen some pretty useful things we can do with redstone, but did you know you can also make light with it? Well kind of. You can make a block that produces light with redstone and then activate it with redstone. It’s called the redstone lamp. You can see the lamp below powered and unpowered below.

These nifty little things can be crafted by taking one full glowstone block and placing one piece of redstone dust, above, below and to the left and right of the glowstone block. This block when powered gives off a light level of 15, which one only slightly brighter than regular torches and just as bright as glowstone. These are powered by having a redstone wire with power in it on any side of the block. As you can guess these are often used as light sources, but commonly used in mushroom farms, so that you can turn the light off to allow them to grow, and then turn them on so you can see what you’re harvesting.

A final device that can be powered with redstone is called a note block. Note blocks are crafted by placing eight wooden planks in the square like you would for a chest, and then a piece of redstone in the center. They are commonly used as alarms, door bells, or even to make music. You can see one below.

Note blocks are powered and work in a similar way to dispensers. They produce one of 16 tones, which can be changed by right clicking on them. These are not necessary for machines or circuits, but are usually used to help add to the effect of them. As mentioned before it’s also common for them to be used in the creation of songs. A final note about note blocks is the type of sound they produce changes dependent upon the kind of block the note block is on. I won’t get into that now, we’ll save it for another section.

Now, this is not a comprehensive guide of all things redstone, but it’s a pretty good place to start. I’d like to talk about one more useful thing in redstone. When supplying power there is a small sort of ‘secret’ to redstone. A torch will only supply power to blocks directly adjacent to it. However, a wire, will ‘charge’ the block it’s connected to. This charge can then supply power to block adjacent to it (but not diagonal). This can be useful when trying to power many things such as three or four redstone lamps.

I should also note that you must have your wire ‘plugged into’ dispensers or pistons you want to power. You can tell if it is ‘plugged in’ by seeing it the redstone trail leads into the device. With that said, I think here would be a good place to stop with our guide to redstone basics. I hope this was somewhat useful or interesting to those of you who are afraid to touch redstone. Feel free to go out and start building your machines. Our next update will be about simple machines that you can build and include a few tutorials for them. Look forward to seeing some automatic redstone farms, secret doors, and some traps.