Redstone Dust

"Let me tell you a little bit about my first redstone creation. I hadn't been playing very long, but I had amassed a huge farm of wheat, which I would harvest and replant any time about half the field had fully grown. This quickly became a pain. So I unleashed my engineering skills on the problem. EAT THAT, PROBLEM!"

- Duncan Geere

Redstone dust, or simply redstone, is a mineral that can transmit redstone power when placed as a block.

Obtaining
Redstone dust can be obtained by mining or smelting redstone ore, destroying jungle temple traps, crafting it from blocks of redstone, killing witches, or by trading with villagers. It can also be found in chests that spawn in naturally generated structures.

Breaking
Redstone dust can be broken instantly using any tool, or without a tool, and drops itself as an item. Its hitbox may only cover part of the surface below, depending on the orientation of the redstone.

Redstone dust will also be removed and drop as an item if:
 * its attachment block is moved, removed, or destroyed
 * water flows into its space
 * a piston tries to push it or moves a block into its space

If lava flows into redstone dust's space, the redstone dust will be destroyed without dropping itself as an item.

Crafting
Redstone can be crafted from blocks of redstone.

Drops
A single witch will drop 0 to 6 redstone when they die, even when not killed by the player. The drop chance can be increased to 0–15 using the Looting enchantment.

Mining
A single redstone ore will yield 4–5 redstone when mined with an iron or diamond pickaxe. With the Fortune enchantment, additional redstone up to the enchantment level may be dropped (e.g. 0–3 extra will be dropped with Fortune III).

Natural generation
15 lengths of redstone dust are naturally generated as part of the trap in each jungle temple. 5 lengths of redstone dust can be found in one type of jail cell room in a woodland mansion.

Trading
Clerics can offer to trade 1 to 4 redstone for an emerald as one of their second-tier trades.

Usage
Redstone dust is used for brewing, crafting, and in redstone circuits by placing it on the ground to create redstone wire.

Redstone component
When placed in the world, redstone dust becomes a block of "redstone wire", which can transmit redstone power.

Placement

 * Redstone dust can be placed on opaque blocks as well as glowstone, upside-down slabs and upside-down stairs, and hoppers (but not sea lanterns ). Only in Bedrock Edition can it also be placed on transparent blocks.


 * Redstone wire will configure itself to point towards adjacent redstone power components and transmission component connection points. Redstone wire will also configure itself to point towards adjacent redstone wire one block higher or lower – unless there is a solid opaque block above the lower redstone wire, or if the higher redstone wire is on a transparent block such as glowstone, an upside-down slab or stairs, or a hopper.


 * If there is only one such adjacent redstone component, redstone wire will configure itself into a line pointing both at the neighbor and away from it. If there are two or more such adjacent redstone components, redstone wire will point at them, forming a line, an "elbow", a "T", or a cross. If there are no such adjacent redstone components, redstone wire will configure itself into a directionless "dot", or a plus sign, both of which can provide power in all four directions.


 * Redstone wire will or will not automatically configure itself to point towards adjacent blocks or mechanism components. If such a configuration is desired, the other neighbors of the redstone wire must be arranged to create it.


 * When redstone wire is reconfigured after placement, it will not update other redstone components around it of the change unless that reconfiguration also includes a change in power level or another component provides an update. This can create situations where a mechanism component remains activated when it shouldn't, or vice versa, until it receives an update from something else – a "feature" of redstone wire that can be exploited to create a kind of block update detector.

Behavior

 * Redstone wire can transmit power, which can be used to operate mechanism components (doors, pistons, redstone lamps, etc.).
 * Redstone wire can be "powered" by a number of methods:
 * from an adjacent power component or a strongly-powered block
 * from the output of a redstone repeater or redstone comparator
 * from adjacent redstone wire. The powering dust can be a level higher or lower, but with restrictions:
 * Redstone dust can be powered by redstone dust which is one level lower, or on an opaque block one level higher. A transparent block cannot pass power downward.
 * The block "between" the two dust blocks must be air or transparent. A solid block there "cuts" the connection between the higher and lower dust.


 * The "power level" of redstone dust can vary from 0 to 15. Most power components power-up adjacent redstone dust to power level 15, but a few (daylight sensors, trapped chests, and weighted pressure plates) may create a lower power level. Redstone repeaters output power level 15 (when turned on), but redstone comparators may output a lower power level.


 * Power level drops by 1 for every block of redstone wire it crosses. Thus, redstone wire can transmit power for no more than 15 blocks. To go further, the power level must be re-strengthened – typically with a redstone repeater.


 * Powered redstone wire on top of, or pointing at, an opaque block will "weakly"-power the block. A weakly-powered block will not power other adjacent redstone wire, but will still power redstone repeaters and comparators and activate adjacent mechanism components. Transparent blocks cannot be powered.


 * When redstone wire is unpowered, it will appear dark red. When powered, it will turn bright red at power level 15, fading to darker shades the lower the power gets. Powered redstone wire also produces "reddust" particles of the same color.

Block data
In Bedrock Edition, redstone wire uses the following data values: