Tutorials/Randomizers

Randomizers are redstone circuits which generate random signals. They can be used in a multitude of things, from running a light show, to making a casino.

Dropper randomizer
This randomizer utilizes the fact that droppers dispense items in random order. It will output a random signal strength of 1 or 3 whenever a signal is provided. To create it, place a dropper, hopper, and comparator as shown. Then put items of varying stack size into the dropper, eg. a sword and a piece of dirt. When you power the dropper, it will put a item into the hopper, turning on the comparator. Since the items take up different amounts of space, the power level will vary. It may seem as if adding items that stack to sixteen will allow an output of two, but unfortunately unless the hopper is weighted with items beforehand, items that stack to 16 only result a level of one.

Pig randomizer
Pig randomizer is the general term for randomizers which use mobs to trigger redstone with their random wandering. This type of randomizer is best when several outputs are wanted and it doesn't matter when the signal occurs or for how long. Pig randomizers are usually created with either pressure plates or tripwires. Using tripwire is probably the easiest method, but it requires more iron.

The type of mob used in the randomizer can create some important variations. Some common choices include:
 * Chickens, because they are small and can easily be reproduced.
 * Snow golems, because they are silent.
 * Pigs and other two wide mobs, because they are less likely to not be triggering anything.

Jukebox randomizer
This randomizer uses jukeboxes and hoppers to generate a analog signal from 1-12 making it unique in that most other randomizers generate binary signals. The main downsides to this randomizer are that it can only generate signals as fast as it takes for each disk to finish playing and that is somewhat expensive.