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Section 1, Components:
Redstone Wire
Well obviously the first item to explain is the core of it all, redstone wire. Redstone wire is fairly simple, it carries a signal 15 blocks from the source (with a few exceptions explained later on) and can travel one block vertically. It CANNOT be placed on any transparent block, with the exception of a Top-half slab and glowstone. Although it can be placed on these blocks, the signal will only travel up NOT down so it can be useful in tight places or a nuisance. It is worth noting that the light level of the redstone will get dimmer as the signal gets weaker. The Strength of the signal is reduced by 1 per block traveled, so if redstone is 5 blocks from a lever then the strength is 10 (15-5=10).
Redstone Repeater
With any viable redstone circuit, whether piston doors or computers, need some way to either direct, extend the current, or time it. Repeaters will renew the input(back to 15 strength) after X ticks and will hold it for X ticks as well.(ince repeaters can be set for either 1,2,3, or 4 ticks i decided to simply put X.) Repeaters will take either direct input OR if there is a redstone wire directly on or directly facing the block the repeater is coming off of it will renew current. Something interesting about repeaters is that if one repeater is directly facing the side of another it will "lock" the state so that it cannot change its state regardless of input(so on stays on or off stays off), until that repeater facing it turns off. Another thing is that a repeater will not renew any input that is shorter than .5(?) ticks in pulse. A repeater will also send a signal through a block to whatever can/will receive it.
Further repeaters will NOT send a signal through a transparent block
Redstone Torch
A Redstone torch is the inverter of MC, so in otherwords always the opposite of the input.The input is any kind of redstone signal directed to the block that the torch is attached to. So if Input is off torch is on, and vice versa, if the input is on the torch is off. Since they are the inverter they are key in any kind of circuit that uses logic. Also they can be used for a number pad kind of deal so that you can have multiple buttons/levers close together without any mixed signals. I will explain the logic gates and some of the uses for them later on. Note that they take a time of 1 tick to toggle states, unless you use a rapid pulser(Explained later).
Redstone Comparator
Redstone comparators are a relatively new redstone component. They have 2 toggle-able states, one of those states is a subtraction mode while the other is a comparison mode. A comparator can take a total of 3 "inputs" there is the true input which is the back and there is the other inputs which are the sides. You can also call the other inputs the side inputs.
While a comparator is in its subtraction state it will take the true input and subtract the highest side input from it, Then the output will be the difference of those strengths, to a minimum of 0.
While a comparator is in its comparison state it will compare the input to its side inputs, if either side input is greater than the true input then it will produce no signal if neither of the side inputs are greater then it will simply carry out the true input with its strength.
A comparator can also produce an output based upon the items in a container. The output will vary based upon the container and the number of items in it, i do not have a list or direct knowledge on the number of items in a container to produce an output of a given strength (so for example a bed provides the same strength as a max stack of items(like 16 snowballs or 64 torches)).
Lever
Levers are one of the many activation devices, they emit a constant 15 strength signal while on and nothing while off. They "power" the block, so anything above, below, or touching the block will trigger if possible. They can be placed on ceilings as of 1.8 so they can be quite useful.
Buttons
In minecraft there are two types of buttons, aside from the material there is a few mechanic differences as well.
Stone buttons - Stone buttons when pressed will remain on for 10 ticks and will set all redstone, repeaters, torches, etc. To a signal strength of 15 upon ativation. Once it does deactivate it will force a redstone update.
Wooden Button - Wooden buttons are just like a stone button except they remain on for 15 ticks and can be activated with any form of arrow, thus meaning that skeletons and dispensers can activate them as well.
Doors
Just like buttons there are two types of doors, Iron and wooden. There are 6 wooden varients but all behave the same regardless.
Wooden Doors - Wooden doors can be manually opened by a player or by a redstone signal. A door will only open if the block underneath it is powered by redstone, if a repeater/comparator or a piece of redstone is facing it, or if a piece of undirected redstone is placed beside it.
Iron doors - Iron doors are just like wooden doors except they can only be opened by a powered redstone current.[/spoiler]
Trap Doors
Wooden Trapdoors - Wooden Trapdoors can be manually opened by a player or by a redstone signal. A door will only open if the block it is attached to is powered.
Iron Trapdoors - Iron Trapdoors are just like wooden trapdoors except they can only be opened by a powered redstone current.
Pressure plates
All pressure plates are triggered by an entity moving on "top" of them. There are 2 types of pressure plates: Wooden and Stone. (Note that i didnt include Iron and Gold becuase they work in a very different manner thus having a different category).
Wooden pressure plate - Wooden pressure plates will activate when any entity, except snowballs, are on top of them, and output a 15 strength pulse for a minimum of 10 ticks.
Stone pressure plate - They work the same as wooden pressure plates except they can only be activated by mobs, including players.
Weighted Pressure plates
Since iron and gold pressure plates work different than their stone and wooden kin i decided to place them in a separate category. They work by detecting the amount of entities on it, the only difference being how much it takes to produce the different tick values. Items will drop as separate entities causing it to read them independently, however, IF items of the same type are present AND they combine into a single stack they will only count as a single entity.
The table below shows the entities required to trigger the pressure plates at said signal strength. SS = Signal Strength, GP = Gold Plate, IP = Iron plate.
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SS GP IP
0 0 0
1 1 1-10
2 2 11-20
3 3 21-30
4 4 31-40
5 5 41-50
6 6 51-60
7 7 61-70
8 8 71-80
9 9 81-90
10 10 91-100
11 11 101-110
12 12 111-120
13 13 121-130
14 14 131-140
15 15+ 141+
A redstone block is simply a block that provides a constant redstone current that never changes. They can be pushed by pistons or sticky pistons but if a sticky piston pushes a redstone block upwards with any block beside the "arm" then it will be stuck in place until something removes the redstone block. Other than that i have very little knowledge on redstone blocks since there isn't many applications for them other than a constant source that cant be destroyed/removed by lava/water respectively. Also since their state of power cant be toggled that gives them a further limited usage as well. Maybe the best thing about them is that it is a way to compactly store redstone wire, T Flip-Flops, and instant redstone (explained later)
Redstone Lamp
A redstone lamp is the "Light bulb" of minecraft. if any form of source or redstone power is adjacent to the block itself then it wil be powered. Also if there is a series(line) of 2+ redstone lamps, (all of them touching side by side) and any one of them is directly powered then it will power the ones adjacent to it, similar to pistons. However you can place an activation device(levers, buttons, pressure plates, etc) on it or maybe even have a redstone torch be attached to it. So relatively the only purpose for them is lighting (whether it be to see if a torch is being toggled, or to see if the lever is on or not, or a display board), so they are just as useful as they are useless.
Note Block
Note blocks are roughly the only way of playing music(with the exception of the limited jukebox), depending on the material will change what instrument it 'imitates'
Wood: Bass Guitar
Stone: Bass Drum
Sand: Snare Drum
Glass: Clicks and Sticks
Other: Piano/Harp
Also depending on the number of times you right click will change the note.
Worth noting that note blocks will only emit sound if the block above them is empty, thus even transparent blocks like glass will inhibit sound emission.
(Sticky) Piston
Pistons as a whole when powered will cause the head of the piston, the wooden arm, to extend by one block exactly. This takes approximately 0.15 seconds to complete, or in redstone terms takes 1.5 ticks. They can push up to 12 blocks at any given time, this includes blocks and any blocks attached to slimeblocks. If a block that would be moved by a slime block is stopped by a block that cannot be moved by a piston, the piston will refuse to extend, likewise if more than 12 blocks are connected to a single piston.
Sticky Piston - These pistons will attempt to pull the block back when deactivated, and when activated will attempt to push the block forward.
Piston These will only push blocks forward, there is no way for them to pull a block back independently of other pistons or slimeblocks.
Dispensers
Dispensers can be a very useful block. They can do anything from shoot an arrow at a mob/player, throw a splash potion to heal you, or maybe even place water down to break your crops and then remove it so you can go replant.
Upon activation the dispenser will 'trigger' a random space with an item in it. Depending on the item it may drop it, or perform a unique action with it. To rather simplify the extensive list, all items dispensed will try to use the right-click action associated with the item on the block in-front of it. Worth noting that it will only activate on the rising edge of the redstone signal, meaning, that you have to turn the signal on and off to trigger it repeatedly. Further, unlike a dropper, the dispenser cannot feed a container.
Droppers
Droppers, are similar to dispensers except they will only drop the item, they cannot fire arrows or throw potions. The dropper will chose a random inventory space to drop the item, and attempt to drop it, or if it is facing a container it will push it into the first open space inside that container(into a stack if its stackable and there is room). This is powered the same way that a Dispenser is powered.
Trapped Chests
A trapped chest will store items like a normal chest, and acts like a normal chest in all ways except that it can output a redstone signal. The signal strength that it outputs is equal to the number of players accessing it (up to 15), this being said, hoppers and droppers will NOT trigger the trapped chest's redstone signal. Uniquely, any opaque block like stone and dirt that is beneath the trapped chest is also powered with a strong signal, meaning that redstone coming off of it will be powered as well (equal to the number of players accessing it as well).
Hoppers
Hoppers are a weird block to utilize to its fullest. They will accept any item entity that sits on top of it if it has space, and will pump items from the container above it into the container its attached to (attaching a hopper to a block means the block you shift-clicked onto, or the way the 'pipe' is pointing). Hoppers will wait .4 seconds (8 ticks) between pushing and pulling items, thus a rate of approximately 2.5 items per second. A hopper will check for new containers, items, or such above it every tick(.05 seconds).
A hopper always tries to pull or suck items into the leftmost available slot, and pushes items from its leftmost slots before it pushes from rightmost slots (it won't start pushing items from its second slot before its first is empty and so on) unless the container it is pushing into can only accept items from the hopper's rightmost slots (because the container is full except for incomplete stacks matching the hopper's rightmost items). A hopper won't suck or pull items, even when enabled(see below), if it has no available slots to accept available items (there are no empty slots and no incomplete stacks of items that match available items). Similarly, a hopper pushes items into the top left available slots of containers before the bottom right slots, and will stop pushing items if there are no available slots to push items into.
Also, a hopper will pull before it pushes, meaning that if you stack two hoppers vertically, and they both go into different containers, the bottom container AND the bottom hopper must fill up before the middle container can start receiving items (barring any redstone signal powering the bottom hopper).
If a hopper is not powered it is considered enabled, and if powered it is considered disabled.
An enabled hopper will pull items thrown on it, pull items from the container above it, and push items to the container it is attached to.
A disabled hopper does not pull items from above (including item entities) or push them out, but may receive items from other droppers and hoppers, and may have its items removed by another hopper beneath it. To stop item transfer in a horizontal hopper pipe, only one hopper needs to be disabled, but to stop item transfer in a vertical hopper pipe, it is necessary to disable two hoppers in a row (because if a single hopper is disabled, the hopper above it can still push items into it and the hopper below it can still pull items from it).
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Section 2, Logic Gates:
With any redstone circuit you obviously want to have something cause something else to happen, and almost 99% of the time is under specific conditions that this should happen, like a player pushing a button, or a chest being completely filled. In any given case, these are 'logical' operations. This simply means it tests for the logical condition of the 2 (or more) inputs and then outputs a value based on the test. In all pictures, the blue will represent Input A and the blue will represent Input B.
Also, all of these gates can be expanded to provide additional checks if the same output is desired, the exceptions being the Not gate, Xor gate, and Xnor gate. The Not gate only accepting a single variable, the Xor and Xnor will provide an interesting set of outcomes respective to the expansion, this will be explained later.
In these examples i am going to provide something called a 'truth table'. This is a list of the different input combinations and the respective outputs to them. In these a 0 means off, and a 1 means on. Also the O column is the output, A and B are the respective inputs.
All of the following gate examples are simple ones that can be replicated with ease, further, its easier to understand them in these designs. All of the gates can be built in many different fashions, so find a design that suits the build and allows you to understand and perform easier.
Essential gates:
These logic gates will almost certainly be a part of every circuit that you will build in some form of fashion, not only do these 3 do that, but they will be a part of almost every gate you see after these.
NOT Gate
The simplest of the gates and most commonly used, this tests a single input and sees if it is on or off, this is also commonly called an inverter. This is essentially a redstone torch in minecraft.
A double inverter will return the same value as your input, so if your input is on your output is on. The way this works is the Input inverts (1->0), then the output of that is inverted (0->1).
(Since this tests a Single input and a single output which is simply inverting the signal, the truth table syntax is somewhat different. I is input, O is output.
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I O
0 1
1 0
OR Gate
Another core gate, this one is also rather simple. This will take two inputs, and see if A OR B is true - meaning that if A or B is on then the output is on. So if either player A or player B has completed the maze then spawn the boss.
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A B O
0 0 0
1 0 1
0 1 1
1 1 1
AND Gate
This gate is a bit more complex to understand in a way, but it is the last of the essential gates to know. This will take two inputs, and see if A AND B is true - this means that both A and B must be on for the output to come on. So if player A and player B are standing on the pressure plates the door will open.
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A B O
0 0 0
1 0 0
0 1 0
1 1 1
Inverted Essential Gates:
The not will not be included because as i said before, an inverted NOT gate is simply your input. These 2 gates are practically the same as the ones above but with a twist, the output is inverted. Thus, the interactions to set the output to on are also changed.
NAND Gate
This gate is similar to the AND gate, but as stated before, the output is reversed. So in this sense the inputs must both be on for the output to be off. I, personally, have never used these, but im sure there are some uses out there.
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A B O
0 0 1
1 0 1
0 1 1
1 1 0
NOR Gate
This gate is similar to the OR gate but has its output inverted. This means that if input A or B is on then the output is off, you can use this to say that if the hopper can receive the item or if the chest has items in it then turn the light on.
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A B O
0 0 1
1 0 0
0 1 0
1 1 0
Complex Gates and Others:
These gates are more complex to build and have multiple output functionalities, however, for the sake of simplicity we will look at it as a simple output as i set up in the example.
XOR Gate
This gate, stated Exclusive OR, will only output if either A OR B is on, if A AND B are on then it will not output. Basically, this only produces a signal if one of the inputs are true. This is most commonly used in a binary calculator in, but in tandem with other circuitry of course.
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A B O
0 0 0
1 0 1
0 1 1
1 1 0
XAND(XNOR) Gate
This XNOR gate is simply the inverse of the XOR gate, which can be alternatively referred to as an XAND gate, this being that the XAND gate will only output a signal if Both inputs are the same value, meaning both on, or both off. I have not used this gate either, however, as with the NAND gate im sure it has its uses.
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A B O
0 0 1
1 0 0
0 1 0
1 1 1
SR-Latch
This, while not a gate, is similar to one and is extremely useful. This will accept 2 inputs, input A and input B. This latch, when powered, will toggle its state to the respective input (if both are powered simultaneously, then the one that turns off last is held, should both power off simultaneously then it behave akin to a t flip-flop), and holds it until told to toggle again, hence the name (Set Reset latch).
Example:
T Flip-Flop
Last of these, but not least, is the T Flip-Flop. Commonly known, this accepts a single input and will toggle its state between one of 2 values, 0 or 1. This differs from the others in this portion in that it utilizes sticky pistons, but regardless it is similar enough to be included.
Example:
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Section 3, Useful Circuit Snippets:
(will be added in due time)
