A pulse circuit is a redstone circuit which generates or modifies pulses.
Pulses[]
A pulse is a redstone signal turned on then off again.
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Analyzing pulses[]
A pulse can be measured with 1-tick precision with an oscilloscope:
- Oscilloscope
- 1×N×2, flat, silent
- An oscilloscope is used to analyze and diagnose pulses. It generally isn't built as part of a redstone mechanism, but is used in circuit invention, design and diagnosis to observe the length and spacing of pulses being generated by part of a circuit.
- An oscilloscope simply consists of a line of 1-tick repeaters. An oscilloscope should be constructed to be at least as long as the expected pulse, plus a few extra repeaters (the more repeaters, the easier it will be to time capturing a pulse). For periodic pulses (as from clock circuits), an oscilloscope should be at least as long as the pulse period (both the on and off parts of the pulse).
An oscilloscope can be frozen to aid reading by:
- positioning the oscilloscope on the screen so that it can be viewed when the player escapes to the game menu (by default, with esc), or
- taking a screenshot with F2, or
- running repeaters into the side of the oscilloscope and powering them simultaneously to lock the repeaters of the oscilloscope.
An oscilloscope is not capable of displaying fractional-tick pulses directly (0.5-tick pulses, 1.5-tick pulses, etc.), but for fractional-tick pulses greater than 1 tick, the pulse length may appear to change as it moves through the oscilloscope. For example, a 3.5-tick pulse may sometimes power 3 repeaters and sometimes 4 repeaters.
0.5-tick pulses do not vary between powering 0 or 1 repeaters (they just look like 1-tick pulses), but 0.5-tick and 1-tick pulses can be differentiated with a redstone comparator -- a 1-tick pulse can activate a comparator, but a 0.5-tick pulse cannot.
In the Minecraft community, the term "monostable circuit" is often used as a synonym for pulse limiters, but the category also applies to pulse generators and all edge detectors.
Pulses and redstone components[]
Most redstone components will respond normally to pulses of any length.
- 0.5-Tick Pulse
- A redstone comparator cannot be activated by a 0.5-tick pulse.
- A redstone lamp cannot be deactivated by a 0.5-tick off-pulse.
- A redstone torch cannot be deactivated by a 0.5-tick pulse.
- A sticky piston activated by a 0.5-tick pulse will not pull on the pulse's falling edge a block it pushed on the pulse's rising edge (because the pushed block doesn't exist yet to be pulled), but can pull a block it didn't push on the pulse's rising edge.
- 1-Tick Pulse
- A 1-tick pulse is the shortest pulse which can activate a redstone comparator.
- A redstone lamp cannot be deactivated by a 1-tick off-pulse.
- A redstone torch cannot be deactivated by a 1-tick pulse. A redstone torch cannot be activated by an exterior 1-tick off-pulse (an off-pulse from other redstone components), but if activated by a longer off-pulse can be short-circuited into deactivating 1 tick after activation.
- A sticky piston activated by a 1-tick pulse will not pull on the pulse's falling edge a block it pushed on the pulse's rising edge (because the pushed block doesn't exist yet to be pulled), but can pull a block it didn't push on the pulse's rising edge.
- 1.5-Tick Pulse
- A redstone lamp cannot be deactivated by a 1.5-tick off-pulse.
- A 1.5-tick pulse is the shortest pulse which can deactivate a redstone torch.
- A 1.5-tick pulse is the shortest pulse which will not cause a sticky piston to "drop" a pushed block.
- 2-Tick Pulse
- A 2-tick off-pulse is the shortest off-pulse which can deactivate a redstone lamp.
- 2.5-Tick Pulse
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- 3-Tick Pulse
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- 3.5-Tick Pulse
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