Pressure Plate

A pressure plate is a non-solid block that can be used to detect players, mobs, items, etc. It has four variants:
 * Grid Oak Pressure Plate.png Wooden pressure plate: Can detect all entities, giving out a maximum signal strength.
 * Grid Stone Pressure Plate.png Stone pressure plate: Can only detect players and mobs, giving out a maximum signal strength.
 * Grid Weighted Pressure Plate (Light).png Light weighted pressure plate: Can detect all entities. The signal strength increases as more entities are added.
 * Grid Weighted Pressure Plate (Heavy).png Heavy weighted pressure plate: Similar to a light weighted pressure plate but measures groups of 10 entities.

Obtaining
A wooden pressure plate can be mined using any tool, or without a tool, however, axes are the fastest. All other types can only be mined with a pickaxe.

A pressure plate will also be removed and drop itself as an item:
 * if the block beneath it is moved, removed, or destroyed
 * if a piston tries to push it or moves a block into its space

Natural generation


One stone pressure plate is generated naturally in each desert pyramid.

Wooden pressure plates are generated naturally in villages on top of fences as a table.

Oak pressure plate generate in some plains village houses.

Acacia pressure plate generate in some savanna village houses.

Spruce pressure plate generate in some snowy tundra village houses.

Usage
A pressure plate can be used to craft detector rails, to smelt items (if wooden), or can be used as a redstone component.

Redstone component
A pressure plate can be used to detect entities on top of it (players, mobs, items, etc.).


 * Placement

To place a pressure plate, it while aiming at the face of a block adjacent to the destination space.

A pressure plate can be attached to:
 * the top of any full solid opaque block (stone, dirt, blocks of gold, etc.), including full-block mechanism components (command blocks, dispensers, droppers, note blocks, and redstone lamps)
 * the top of a hopper, fence, nether brick fence, an upside-down slab, or upside-down stairs.

A pressure plate cannot be attached to the side or bottom of any block, but attempting to make such an attachment may cause the plate to attach to the top of a block under the destination space. For example, if a fence is on the ground, attempting to attach a plate to the side of the fence will cause the plate to be attached to the top of the ground next to the fence instead.

More information regarding placement on transparent blocks can be found at Opacity/Placement.


 * Activation

A pressure plate activates when an entity is on top of it (specifically, when the entity's collision mask intersects the bottom quarter-block of the pressure plate's space, which may include entities flying close to the ground) and deactivates 5 redstone ticks (0.5 seconds, barring lag) after no entities are on top of it, with a minimum activation time of 10 redstone ticks (1.0 seconds, barring lag).

A stone pressure plate is activated only by mobs (including players), while a wooden pressure plate or a weighted pressure plate is activated by all entities (including players, mobs, items, arrows, experience orbs, fishing bobs, etc.) besides snowballs.

A minecart traveling on rails will activate a pressure plate next to a diagonal track but not one next to a straight track (stone pressure plates are activated only if the minecart contains a mob or player).


 * Behavior

While active, a pressure plate:
 * powers adjacent redstone dust, and adjacent redstone comparators or redstone repeaters facing away from the plate
 * strongly powers any full solid opaque block beneath it
 * activates adjacent mechanism components, including above or below, such as pistons, redstone lamps, etc.

For stone and wooden pressure plates, the power level is always 15. For weighted pressure plates, the power level varies depending on the number of entities (see Required Entities for Weighted Pressure Plate Signal Strength Table, right).

The signal strength from a weighted pressure plate does not vary with the type of entity: all entities have the same "weight" (for example, two mobs produce the same strength as two dropped items). An item stack counts as a single entity, no matter how many items are in the stack. When multiple items of the same type fall on a weighted pressure plate, they may initially be separate item entities and the weighted pressure plate will count them separately, but if they then collapse into a single item stack entity the signal strength from the weighted pressure plate may go down.

Water and lava will flow around a pressure plate without affecting it.

A pressure plate is not solid (it is not a barrier to entity movement). A block under a pressure plate can provide a solid barrier underneath it (for mobs to walk across, items to fall on, etc.), but when a pressure plate is placed on a block with a small collision mask, such as a fence or nether brick fence, it is possible for entities to move through the pressure plate while still activating it (walking through it horizontally, or falling through it vertically). Thus, a pressure plate on a fence can be used to detect entities without stopping them (more compactly than a tripwire circuit).

Pressure plates are 0.0625 blocks high ($1/16$ of a block) when inactive and 0.03125 blocks high ($1/32$ of a block) when active, but because they are not solid they do not affect the position of entities "on top" of them (for example, a player on top of a pressure plate is actually standing on the block beneath it).

Fuel
Wooden pressure plates can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1.5 items per pressure plate.

Block data
In Bedrock Edition, a pressure plate's data value specifies whether is it active:

Pre-1.7.2 requirements
Before 1.7.2, weighted pressure plates could only be activated by drops, and they required larger quantities.