A pressure plate is a non-solid block that can be used to detect players, mobs, items, etc. It has four variants:
- File:Grid Wooden Pressure Plate.png Wooden: Can detect all entities, giving out a maximum signal strength.
Stone: Can only detect players and mobs, giving out a maximum signal strength.- File:Grid Weighted Pressure Plate (Light).png Light weighted: Can detect all entities. The signal strength increases as more entities are added
- File:Grid Weighted Pressure Plate (Heavy).png Heavy weighted: Similar to a light weighted pressure plate but requires much higher quantities to be activated.
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
| Block | Stone Iron Gold |
Wooden | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 0.5 | 0.5 | |
| Tool | |||
| Breaking time[A] | |||
| Default | 2.5 | 0.75 | |
| Wooden | 0.4 | 0.4 | |
| Stone | 0.2 | 0.2 | |
| Iron | 0.15 | 0.15 | |
| Diamond | 0.1 | 0.1 | |
| Netherite | 0.1 | 0.1 | |
| Golden | 0.1 | 0.1 | |
- ↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.
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
Crafting
| Name | Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|---|
| Stone Pressure Plate | Stone | |
| Wooden Pressure Plate | Any Wood Planks | |
| Weighted Pressure Plate (Heavy) | Iron Ingot | |
| Weighted Pressure Plate (Light) | Gold Ingot |
Natural generation
Pressure plates used as tables in a village library.
One stone pressure plate is generated naturally in each desert temple.
Wooden pressure plates are generated naturally in villages on top of fences as a table[Computer and Legacy Console editions only].
Usage
A pressure plate can be used to craft detector rails, to smelt items, or can be used as a redstone component.
Crafting ingredient
| Name | Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|---|
| Detector Rail | Iron Ingot + Stone Pressure Plate + Redstone Dust |
Redstone component
A pressure plate can be used to detect entities on top of it (players, mobs, items, etc.).
- Placement
Pressure plate placement and behavior.
Pressure plates on fences.
To place a pressure plate, use 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.
- 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).[verify]
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
| Signal Strength |
Number of entities required | |
|---|---|---|
| Gold Plate | Iron Plate | |
| 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+ |
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.
Data values
A pressure plate is defined by its ID and block data. A pressure plate also has a block state which is expected to replace the functionality of block data in a future version.
ID
A pressure plate's ID specifies what type of pressure plate it is.
Pressure Plate/ID
Block data
A pressure plate's data value specifies whether is it active:
- Stone or wooden pressure plate
| Bits | Values |
|---|---|
| 0x1 | If this bit is set, the pressure plate is active. |
| 0x2 0x4 0x8 |
Unused. |
- Weighted pressure plate
| Bits | Values |
|---|---|
| 0x1 0x2 0x4 0x8 |
A four-bit field storing a value from 0 to 15 representing the weighted pressure plate's current redstone power level. |
Block state
Java Edition:
Stone and wooden pressure plates
| Name | Default value | Allowed values | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| powered | false | falsetrue | True if pressure plate is depressed, providing power. |
Weighted pressure plates
| Name | Default value | Allowed values | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| power | 0 | 0123456789101112131415 | Specifies the redstone power level currently being produced by the weighted pressure plate. |
Bedrock Edition:
Stone and wooden pressure plates
| Name | Metadata Bits | Default value | Allowed values | Values for Metadata Bits |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| redstone_signal | 0x1 | 0 | 01 | 01 | Specifies whether the pressure plate is pressed. |
23456789101112131415 | Unsupported | Unused |
Weighted pressure plates
| Name | Metadata Bits | Default value | Allowed values | Values for Metadata Bits |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| redstone_signal | 0x10x20x40x8 | 0 | 0123456789101112131415 | 0123456789101112131415 | Specifies the redstone power level currently being produced by the pressure plate. |
Video
Pressure Plate/video
History
| alpha | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0.1 | File:Grid Stone Pressure Plate pre 1.9.pngFile:Grid Wooden Pressure Plate pre 1.9.png Added pressure plates. Weighted pressure pressure plates do not exist yet. | ||||
| beta | |||||
| 1.3 | Pressure plates only require two wood planks/stone to craft; previous versions required three (this recipe now creates wooden or stone slabs). | ||||
| 1.5 | Stone pressure plates are now used to craft detector rails. | ||||
| 1.6 | Wooden plates no longer require a pickaxe to be successfully extracted; before they used to. Both types of plates can also be recovered by destroying the block they are on. | ||||
| Pressure plates may no longer be placed on leaf blocks. Pressure plates placed on leaf blocks prior to this update will drop when stepped on and may be recollected. | |||||
| 1.8 | Pressure plates are placeable on fences, though they are not functional as pressure plates in this configuration. | ||||
| release | |||||
| 1.0.0 | Beta 1.9-pre2 | Pressure plates now function when placed on top of fences. | |||
| 1.3.1 | 12w21a | A stone pressure plate now generates in desert temples. | |||
| 12w23a | Wooden pressure plates can be activated by arrows. | ||||
| 1.5 | 13w01a | File:Grid Weighted Pressure Plate (Light) pre 1.9.pngFile:Grid Weighted Pressure Plate (Heavy) pre 1.9.png Added weighted pressure plates. | |||
| 1.7.2 | 13w36a | Rescaled output strength of weighted pressure plates. | |||
| Allowed all entities to trigger weighted pressure plates. | |||||
| 1.9 | 15w31a | ||||
| 15w43a | Non-stone pressure plates are given a different, more high-pitched activation sound, so that they no longer match the sound of stone pressure plates. | ||||
| 15w46a | Mobs no longer spawn on pressure plates. | ||||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| 0.13.0 | build 1 | Added pressure plates and weighted pressure plates. Stone pressure plates are used to craft detector rails. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU1 | CU1 | 1.0 | Patch 1 | Added pressure plates. | |
| TU5 | Pressure plates are placeable on fences. | ||||
| TU14 | 1.04 | Wooden pressure plates can be activated by arrows. | |||
| TU19 | CU7 | 1.12 | Added weighted pressure plates. | ||
Pre-1.7.2 requirements
Before 1.7.2, weighted pressure plates could only be activated by drops, and they required larger quantities.
| Signal strength |
Number of entities required | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold plate | Iron plate (blocks) |
Iron plate (stacks) | |
| 1 | 1–4 | 1–42 | 1 block–42 blocks |
| 2 | 5–8 | 43–85 | 43 blocks–1 stack 21 blocks |
| 3 | 9–12 | 86–128 | 1 stack 22 blocks–2 stacks |
| 4 | 13–16 | 129–170 | 2 stacks 1 block–2 stacks 42 blocks |
| 5 | 17–20 | 171–213 | 2 stacks 43 blocks–3 stacks 21 blocks |
| 6 | 21–24 | 214–256 | 3 stacks 22 blocks–4 stacks |
| 7 | 25–28 | 257–298 | 4 stacks 1 block–4 stacks 42 blocks |
| 8 | 29–32 | 299–341 | 4 stacks 43 blocks–5 stacks 21 blocks |
| 9 | 33–36 | 342–384 | 5 stacks 22 blocks–6 stacks |
| 10 | 37–40 | 385–426 | 6 stacks 1 block–6 stacks 42 blocks |
| 11 | 41–44 | 427–469 | 6 stacks 43 blocks–7 stacks 21 blocks |
| 12 | 45–48 | 470–512 | 7 stacks 22 blocks–8 stacks |
| 13 | 49–52 | 513–554 | 8 stacks 1 block–8 stacks 42 blocks |
| 14 | 53–56 | 555–597 | 8 stacks 43 blocks–9 stacks 21 blocks |
| 15 | 57+ | 598+ | 9 stacks 22 blocks+ |
Issues
Issues relating to "Pressure Plate" or "Weighted Pressure Plate" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.