Redstone Wire

Redstone Wire is a type of tool used to connect items together that can be used to open doors or activate certain items.

Redstone wire is placed by right clicking on the surface of a Block with Redstone (Dust) selected in the action bar. It is available since Alpha. To obtain Redstone Wire, Redstone Dust is needed, which can be found by mining Redstone Ore with an iron pickaxe or better.

Redstone Wires will not carry their charge farther than 15 blocks. However, it is possible to extend their range to a degree by making gates. The creation and use of gates are explained in Redstone circuits. Redstone Wire used to be "destroyed" when stepped on in-game, but this was changed due to an update, making the idea of "tripwires" no longer plausible.

Map areas generated before the Redstone update will not contain Redstone.

As of beta 1.3, redstone dims as it moves away from the original source.

How wires connect and provide power
Redstone Wire will connect to adjacent blocks that can provide power. These blocks are the Redstone Torch, Switches, and other wires. It does not try to form connections with things that "receive" power, like Doors. You can tell if a wire is connected because its appearance will change: By default a wire looks like a "+" (connected in all four directions), but if it has one connection it will look like a straight line. (It also looks like a straight line when it's connected at both ends.) Bends and T-junctions are also possible by connecting on the appropriate sides.

Redstone Wire will connect to things one level above or below, but there are some restrictions. First, the connection will be broken if an opaque block is over the lower wire. (Visually, the block is cutting off the connection with its lower edge.)



Secondly, for a wire to connect up a level, there must be an opaque block underneath the thing that's being connected. (This in not an issue for wires, which can only sit on the floor, but it can happen with torches and switches that attach to a wall.)



Note that despite being "connected" to the torch, the torch is not providing power to the wire! Wires provide power to the things they're connected to, they do not receive power from their connections. This is despite the (backwards) fact that wires connect to power providers!

Also, when the wire is connected to the torch it does not show the wire running up the side of the dirt block. That linkage is only shown for connections between two wires.

Related pages

 * Redstone
 * Redstone (Ore)
 * Redstone (Dust)
 * Redstone (Torch)
 * Redstone circuits
 * Switches
 * Mechanisms
 * Traps

Redstone (Kabel)