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Fundamentals

The component toolkit

A tour of the parts you build redstone with — what each one does, and when to reach for it.

Redstone circuits are made from a small set of parts. Once you know what each does, most circuits read as combinations you can recognize at a glance. Here is the whole toolkit, grouped by job.

Power sources

These create a signal out of nothing — strength 15 whenever they're active.

  • Lever — flips on and stays on until you flip it back. The simplest manual input.
  • Button — sends a short pulse, then resets itself.
  • Pressure plate — stays on while something is standing on it.

Wiring and shaping

  • Redstone dust — carries the signal along the ground, losing 1 strength per block.
  • Redstone torch — inverts its input: on when unpowered, off when powered. The building block of all logic.
  • Repeater — passes signal one way only, refreshes it back to 15, and adds an adjustable 14 tick delay. It can also be locked to freeze its output.

Reading and reacting

  • Comparator — measures signal strength. In compare mode it passes the rear signal through unless a side input is stronger; in subtract mode it outputs the rear minus the side. It can also read how full a container is.
  • Observer — watches the block in front of it and emits a 1-tick pulse whenever that block changes.
A comparator in subtract mode: rear input minus side input.View & run →

Outputs

  • Redstone lamp — lights while it's powered.
  • Piston — pushes the block in front of it. A sticky piston also pulls the block back when it retracts.

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