There have been quite a few threads recently asking how to use some of the more basic features of redstone, so I figured I may as well make a tutorial for using the stuff.
----------------------------------------
Introduction to Redstone
Redstone Components
The different blocks related to redstone.
Basic components:
Redstone wire:
Unpowered (left) and powered (right)
Can be used to connect other elements, such as torches, levers, doors, etc.
Redstone torch:
Freestanding and block-mounted versions. Unpowered/on (left), Powered/off (right).
Can power redstone wires. When powered itself, it will cease to power wires.
Input Devices:
Lever:
Block-mounted/off (left) and freestanding/on (right) versions.
A switch. Placed in default "off" position and will not power wire. When flipped from this initial configuration, it will power wires until flipped again.
Button:
Block-mounted only.
Another type of switch. When pressed, will power wires for a short time (~1 second). The wire will then turn off.
Pressure plates:
Wooden (left) and stone (right) versions. Ground-mounted only.
Will stay triggered for at least roughly a second, longer if the creature (mob or player) stays on the plate, making them useful for traps. Additionally, wooden pressure plates can also be triggered by dropped item entities, making them useful for mob-spawner traps or automatic cactus farms.
Output:
Doors:
Wooden door (left), iron door (right)
Placed closed. When powered by redstone, will flip 90 degrees. Wooden doors can also be opened/closed by hand, whereas iron doors are only controllable via redstone.
Controlling a door with redstone
TNT:
When activated by hand or powered redstone, will violently explode, destroying all blocks around it except obsidian (unless it it submerged in water, where no blocks will be destroyed), damaging the player, and propelling other TNT.
Minecart tracks:
Both sets of track started out identical, but one is unpowered (left) and the other is being controlled by an upright torch under the intersection.
Controlling cart tracks with redstone
Connecting Components:
A basic how-to on the quirks of connecting with redstone wire.
Wire alignment:
The left version works. The right does not. Whats the difference?
In the left, the wire goes directly to the door. On the right, it goes past it. Try to make sure that, when controlling by wire, you either have your wire go directly to what is being controlled, or have a branch of the wire do so.
15 block limit:
Count the blocks. As you can see, the current peters out after a measly 15 blocks. However, there is a way to get around that, using a double-NOT wire extender:
Close up:
This is a compression of two NOT gates linked in series. The signal will come out unchanged (came in powered, comes out powered, or unpowered if it came in unpowered), but will be extended to go another 15 blocks.
Logic:
This is going to be a short section, highlighting simply the most useful gates. For more, better, and up-to date research and finding, visit the "redstuff logic gates" thread here.
What is a logic gate?
A logic gate is a simple construction that takes two (or more, but that's more advanced) inputs, and outputs an output based on a truth table and those inputs.
Logic Gate diagrams:
Explanation:
For convenience: one input is a, the other is b. Which is a and which is b does not matter.
NOT gate:
If a is powered, the output is NOT powered.
AND gate:
If a AND b are powered, then the output will be powered.
OR gate:
If a OR b OR both are powered, then the output will be powered.
XOR gate:
If a OR b, but not both are powered, then the output will be powered.
NAND gate:
What you get when you hook up a NOT gate the the output of an AND gate. If both a and b are powered, the output is unpowered. Otherwise the output is powered.
NOR gate:
If neither a NOR b is powered, the output is powered. Otherwise if a, b or both is powered, the output is unpowered.
XNOR gate:
If a and b are both unpowered, or if they are both powered, then the output is powered. If a and b have different states (on unpowered and the other powered), the output is unpowered.
For more information on the other devices in that image, see this thread.
---------------------------
The end of this tutorial. Thanks for reading, and I hope it answered your questions.
FAQ FAQ's:
Q: Why didn't you add flipflops/etc?
A: It would get too long, and we already have a 40something-page thread if you're interested in that stuff.
Q: Where did you get the absolutely fabulous hosting you're using?!
A: dropbox.com, an absolutley great hosting site. You can save straight from your image editing program to your dropbox folder, refresh your dropbox page, grab the link and post. Plus you can sync files between computers and its really awesomeand I may have posted a referral link but when you sign up with it we both get more space than the default (you get 250 megabytes extra I think), so win-win.
I've been completely in the dark about how redstone works until now, thank you for the absolubtly clear and easy to understand tutorial! You made my day.
Thanks guys.
I edited a few things in the tutorial to make it a bit clearer. If anything else is confusing, or you want anything else added, just post it here and I'll fix it.
Well I still know just about nothing about Logic gates and what they can be used for but that is probably more due to the fact that I know nothing about logic gates period :tongue.gif:
I found myself trying redstone out for the first time a week ago, and after reading all the threads on the forums, I was still unsure about the basics, as none of those threads adress basics and how to start.
I was stuck on how to build an inverter, I knew the layout from the other threads, but could not get it to work. I then put the inverter onto a block, and it worked. Would have liked to have known that after many failed tries.
Awesome topic. Just a small question in that picture there are three iamges that are not explained. Could someone explain those? RS Nor Latch , RS nand Latch and 5-clock.
Also if someone would be so kind to explain to me how I would setup this:
I want a double Iron door to be opened from the inside by two pressure plates, and outside the doors are being controlled by a lever. Also hopefully all those redstone dust should be hidden underground =)
did you do this for the dropbox referrals? i'm confused as to what this provides that previous redstone tutorials have not already provided.
Previous redstone tutorials consisted of about 3 paragraphs of explanation. I was trying to give a through description of everything that you can do with redstone, and a few tricks for using it (like putting torches under doors instead of running wires to them).
If you could link me to any other redstone tutorials you find to be at a higher quality I'd be ecstatic to look at them.
Quote from Nebuchadnezzar »
Awesome topic. Just a small question in that picture there are three iamges that are not explained. Could someone explain those? RS Nor Latch , RS nand Latch and 5-clock.
Also if someone would be so kind to explain to me how I would setup this:
I want a double Iron door to be opened from the inside by two pressure plates, and outside the doors are being controlled by a lever. Also hopefully all those redstone dust should be hidden underground =)
The RS NOR latch and RS NAND latch are basic memory cells, that hold a bit of data (either a 1 or 0).
A 5-clock produces a torch on for 5 ticks (the time it takes a torch to turn on or off when the wire it's connected to changes), then off for 5 ticks. 1111100000. It, and clocks of other speeds, are used for pretty much anything involving time, like counters, flip-flops, etc.
Again, if you follow the link in the OP to the redstuff logic gates thread, you'll find much better explanations buried in it. Latches and flip-flops also have entries in the computer science portal at Wikipedia.
Best Redstone Tutorial yet. Things are making sense now.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I thought you'd contracted a disease that gave you the same metabolism as an oak tree - Maggarg II
It heals all of your goddamn hearts! - kittensamurai
This helps an absolute ton! Thank you! I never knew that you could put redstone torches underneath doors.
You can also put them underneath minecart tracks and other upright redstone torches (vertical currents!), though it needs to be an odd number of torches stacked, or you need to NOT the output of the stack, as torches act like NOT gates.
Quote from Kris18 »
Quote from SaiyanKirby »
How can I request this be stickied?
I second the stickying notion.
Thanks.
Quote from fr0stbyte124 »
There's already a collection of guides stickied. Put it there.
----------------------------------------
Introduction to Redstone
Redstone Components:
Basic Components:
Wire
Torches
Input:
Levers
Buttons
Pressure Plates
Output:
Doors
TNT
Minecart Tracks
Connecting Components:
Wire alignment
Block limits
Logic:
What is a logic gate?
Gates
FAQ FAQs
--------------------------------------------
Redstone Components
The different blocks related to redstone.
Basic components:
Redstone wire:
Unpowered (left) and powered (right)
Can be used to connect other elements, such as torches, levers, doors, etc.
Redstone torch:
Freestanding and block-mounted versions. Unpowered/on (left), Powered/off (right).
Can power redstone wires. When powered itself, it will cease to power wires.
Input Devices:
Lever:
Block-mounted/off (left) and freestanding/on (right) versions.
A switch. Placed in default "off" position and will not power wire. When flipped from this initial configuration, it will power wires until flipped again.
Button:
Block-mounted only.
Another type of switch. When pressed, will power wires for a short time (~1 second). The wire will then turn off.
Pressure plates:
Wooden (left) and stone (right) versions. Ground-mounted only.
Will stay triggered for at least roughly a second, longer if the creature (mob or player) stays on the plate, making them useful for traps. Additionally, wooden pressure plates can also be triggered by dropped item entities, making them useful for mob-spawner traps or automatic cactus farms.
Output:
Doors:
Wooden door (left), iron door (right)
Placed closed. When powered by redstone, will flip 90 degrees. Wooden doors can also be opened/closed by hand, whereas iron doors are only controllable via redstone.
Controlling a door with redstone
TNT:
When activated by hand or powered redstone, will violently explode, destroying all blocks around it except obsidian (unless it it submerged in water, where no blocks will be destroyed), damaging the player, and propelling other TNT.
Minecart tracks:
Both sets of track started out identical, but one is unpowered (left) and the other is being controlled by an upright torch under the intersection.
Controlling cart tracks with redstone
Connecting Components:
A basic how-to on the quirks of connecting with redstone wire.
Wire alignment:
The left version works. The right does not. Whats the difference?
In the left, the wire goes directly to the door. On the right, it goes past it. Try to make sure that, when controlling by wire, you either have your wire go directly to what is being controlled, or have a branch of the wire do so.
15 block limit:
Count the blocks. As you can see, the current peters out after a measly 15 blocks. However, there is a way to get around that, using a double-NOT wire extender:
Close up:
This is a compression of two NOT gates linked in series. The signal will come out unchanged (came in powered, comes out powered, or unpowered if it came in unpowered), but will be extended to go another 15 blocks.
Logic:
This is going to be a short section, highlighting simply the most useful gates. For more, better, and up-to date research and finding, visit the "redstuff logic gates" thread here.
What is a logic gate?
A logic gate is a simple construction that takes two (or more, but that's more advanced) inputs, and outputs an output based on a truth table and those inputs.
Logic Gate diagrams:
Explanation:
For convenience: one input is a, the other is b. Which is a and which is b does not matter.
NOT gate:
If a is powered, the output is NOT powered.
AND gate:
If a AND b are powered, then the output will be powered.
OR gate:
If a OR b OR both are powered, then the output will be powered.
XOR gate:
If a OR b, but not both are powered, then the output will be powered.
NAND gate:
What you get when you hook up a NOT gate the the output of an AND gate. If both a and b are powered, the output is unpowered. Otherwise the output is powered.
NOR gate:
If neither a NOR b is powered, the output is powered. Otherwise if a, b or both is powered, the output is unpowered.
XNOR gate:
If a and b are both unpowered, or if they are both powered, then the output is powered. If a and b have different states (on unpowered and the other powered), the output is unpowered.
For more information on the other devices in that image, see this thread.
---------------------------
The end of this tutorial. Thanks for reading, and I hope it answered your questions.
FAQ FAQ's:
Q: Why didn't you add flipflops/etc?
A: It would get too long, and we already have a 40something-page thread if you're interested in that stuff.
Q: Where did you get the absolutely fabulous hosting you're using?!
A: dropbox.com, an absolutley great hosting site. You can save straight from your image editing program to your dropbox folder, refresh your dropbox page, grab the link and post. Plus you can sync files between computers and its really awesomeand I may have posted a referral link but when you sign up with it we both get more space than the default (you get 250 megabytes extra I think), so win-win.
I edited a few things in the tutorial to make it a bit clearer. If anything else is confusing, or you want anything else added, just post it here and I'll fix it.
I found myself trying redstone out for the first time a week ago, and after reading all the threads on the forums, I was still unsure about the basics, as none of those threads adress basics and how to start.
I was stuck on how to build an inverter, I knew the layout from the other threads, but could not get it to work. I then put the inverter onto a block, and it worked. Would have liked to have known that after many failed tries.
External server browser: Created by me, made for you.Not working atm, and will not get updated in the near future, sorry.
Status: OFFLINE
Check out this game if you like minecraft!
Also if someone would be so kind to explain to me how I would setup this:
I want a double Iron door to be opened from the inside by two pressure plates, and outside the doors are being controlled by a lever. Also hopefully all those redstone dust should be hidden underground =)
Previous redstone tutorials consisted of about 3 paragraphs of explanation. I was trying to give a through description of everything that you can do with redstone, and a few tricks for using it (like putting torches under doors instead of running wires to them).
If you could link me to any other redstone tutorials you find to be at a higher quality I'd be ecstatic to look at them.
The RS NOR latch and RS NAND latch are basic memory cells, that hold a bit of data (either a 1 or 0).
A 5-clock produces a torch on for 5 ticks (the time it takes a torch to turn on or off when the wire it's connected to changes), then off for 5 ticks. 1111100000. It, and clocks of other speeds, are used for pretty much anything involving time, like counters, flip-flops, etc.
Again, if you follow the link in the OP to the redstuff logic gates thread, you'll find much better explanations buried in it. Latches and flip-flops also have entries in the computer science portal at Wikipedia.
It heals all of your goddamn hearts! - kittensamurai
I second the stickying notion.
You can also put them underneath minecart tracks and other upright redstone torches (vertical currents!), though it needs to be an odd number of torches stacked, or you need to NOT the output of the stack, as torches act like NOT gates.
Thanks.
I'll submit it there.