Basics: Inverters and Vertical Transmission

Inverters and Vertical Transmission

Ok so now you've mastered wiring right? And we know that wire can stair-step up and down. But what if we want to transmit a signal more than 15 blocks? What if we don't want to stair step up and down? Well, That's what this post is about. I'll teach you about inverters, and how to go up and down without having to make a staircase for your wiring.

For this lesson we will be using levers.
A Lever is an input device. It emits a full redstone signal (15 units) when it's on, and 0 when it's off. You can toggle it on and off by right clicking the lever.

Let's say we have a lever that we want to use to toggle something that's more than 15 blocks away. If we just use wire directly from the lever to the lamp, we won't have enough signal to reach the lamp, and it will always be off. Poor lamp :( All it wants to do is shine, but it's just too far away.

One way to get this signal from the switch to the lamp is to 'Repeat' the signal (You can use a redstone repeater to do this, but repeaters are interesting enough to deserve their own post. We'll use redstone torch inverters for now). If we place 2 solid blocks along our wire's path with redstone torches on the side facing the lamp, we've set up a torch repeater circuit. Now when we flip the lever, the lamp lights up, even though it's so far away. But how did that happen? Redstone torches can act as inverters too, not just a power source.

So what is an inverter? It's pretty simple. It converts a signal that's on to one that's off and vice versa. So if a block that a redstone torch is attached to gets a redstone signal, the torch turns off. Redstone torches can be mounted to the top and to the side of blocks, both can act as an inverter. This is why redstone torches never power the block they are attached to, it would immediately extinguish itself, and cause a never-ending on/off loop.

Ok now that you understand how inverters work, let's see how we can use them to transmit a signal up and down without having to build a staircase for wire.

It's easier to go up than down using inverters, but I'll show you both. To go up, we simply stack inverters on top of each other in a 1x1 vertical column. You'll notice that every other torch is off because the one below it is giving it a charge. So let's wire the bottom block to a lever, and flip it. What happens? All of the torches in the tower flip too, allowing you to toggle a circuit that's several levels above the switch, and we didn't need to build a big staircase for it. It's more compact this way too, think about how big of a staircase you would need to go up that high, vs climbing the 1x1 space through the vertical tower?

Torches can be placed on the side of blocks too, so we could build a tower to go up in a 2x1 space too.

Now that we've learned how to get signal up through a tower, lets see how to get it back down now.

This is slightly more tricky, but not much. We'll build a 3x1 tower first like this picture here:

on each side of the tower we have blocks with wire on top, and torches on the side. When the wire gets a charge, it turns the torch on that block off, which turns the next torch down on, and so on back down to the ground.

There is a similar 2x1 method for going down as well like this one:

I've set up all of these examples in a saved map, which you can download and try for yourself. Plus, because I'm a sneaky girl and I want to encourage you to download my maps, There are some EXTRA examples and building tips that aren't covered in this post featured in the map! The maps are always free, and there's no better way to learn than by seeing things for yourself.

Download the Map file Here:

Click Here to Download This Map

How to Play a Downloaded Minecraft Map

Basics: Redstone Wire

Redstone Wiring

When you place redstone dust on blocks it forms a wire, and connects itself to adjacent pieces directly north, east, south, or west of itself, but not diagonally.

The purpose of wire is simple, it carries a redstone signal just like electrical wire carries electrical current. There are limits though, The maximum amount redstone charge is 15 units, and you will lose 1 unit of "signal strength" per block of wire it moves through. That means that wire alone can only transmit a signal a maximum distance of 15 blocks from it's source. When wire carries a charge, it will glow at a brightness depending on the amount of signal in that piece of wire. I'll use a redstone torch, some wire, and some lamps to demonstrate how wire gradually diminishes signal strength.

Random Fact:
Signal loses strength as it moves through wire in the real-world too. This is called Attenuation.

A redstone torch is normally on, and outputs 15 redstone signal strength. It can also act as an inverter, but we'll talk more about that functionality in a later post.
A redstone lamp is a device that will glow when it receives a redstone signal.

I have placed a wire in a straight line and marked the signal strength of each block as the wire gets further away from the torch acting as our power source. Note that the torch does NOT charge the block it sits on, this would cause problems with the other functions of torches we will discuss later.

When the wire runs out of signal there is no more charge to carry as you can see in this pic below.

Wire can be placed on MOST solid block types, but some blocks will stubbornly refuse to allow wire on top of it.

Wire will also connect up or down 1 block. One way to transmit a signal up or down is to stair-step like this. I'll show you other ways later on.

When placing wire, keep in mind that if a wire will be blocked from moving up or down if there is a block which cuts the path as shown here:

However, if you need a block there AND you need wire to go down a block here, you can use a slab to allow the wire to connect downwards. Keep in mind that wire on top of the slab will also be charged, allowing you to split the signal vertically:

When I was first learning redstone, One of the things I found frustrating was that I didn't understand how to determine if a block would have a charge or not. It required the use of the same traditional process we use to learn most things:

The Learn-by-doing Process:
1. Trial
2. Error
3. Obscene Swearing
4. Repeat until you finally get it right

However, I've put together a couple examples in the hopes of minimizing this process for you.
Wire will transmit a charge to the block it sits on and the adjacent blocks. If a wire ends attached to a block that block will transmit a charge to the adjacent blocks as well. This means that a directly charged block will also the blocks on each side, top, and bottom, but not further than 1 block.

Even though a charge can move through a block to one next to it, wire alone will not pick up this signal. There are ways to do this which we'll see later.

I advise you to play around with wire and charges in creative mode on your own to get a good feel for how signal is transmitted. You'll need a firm grasp of these concepts before you can build more complex machines, and understand the posts I'll make in future days.

You can download and play this map and see these examples for yourself!
Click Here to Download Redstone Wiring Example Map

If you aren't sure how to play a downloaded map, I've written a tutorial for that too:
How to Play a Downloaded Minecraft Map

Intro

Hello, I'm Nikki.  I'm a self-professed nerd-girl who enjoys playing Minecraft... A lot.
It's quite an addiction as most other players of the game would understand even if they don't admit it themselves.  One of the things I find really entertaining about the game is redstone and the machines and circuits you can make with it.  At the same time, one of the things I found really FRUSTRATING about redstone is it didnt seem to be well documented, and when I began learning how to use it I was overwhelmed by frustrated complicated explanations and countless boring incomprehensible Youtube video tutorials.  It took me a while, and lots more patience than I knew I had, but I eventually got the hang of it.  In fact, it's sometimes astonishing how much redstone emulates real world DC electronic circuits.
  As this is post number one, the beginning of this blog, There isn't a lot here yet.  However with time I intend this blog to be just what the title says: a guide to redstone that's easy for all people to understand and begin building their own creations using the wonderful red dust we find so deep below we call redstone.  Just for the point of providing information, I'll also try to point out some of the similarities between redstone and real-world electronics.
  Enough of this intro now, lets get into the basics.  And by basic I mean REALLY basic, like What is redstone in the first place?
  Redstone is found deep underground. DEEP underground. I mean 10 blocks above bedrock deep.  If you're relatively new to minecraft, go back up to the surface and play around a bit to get comfortable with the game in general before you come back down here with us, you will want to be familiar with a lot more of the game before you try your hand at redstone.
You find Redstone as blocks of Redstone Ore near bedrock level.  You need an Iron Pickaxe or better to mine it (you can break the block with less, but you won't get the redstone drop).  If you give that ore block a good whack it will start glowing, which if you are as easily distracted and amused as I am, It's pretty cool. When you bust up this ore block it will bestow upon you the goodness of 4 or 5 pieces of Redstone Dust.  Pick up these little dust piles and you will have the most basic element of redstone circuitry, which you will need quite a lot of if you want to build bigger and more complex machines.

Review time:
The most basic part of redstone circuitry is Redstone Dust 
and you get it by busting up Redstone Ore 
by using and Iron or better pickaxe

You can build more complex components with raw redstone dust, which will be discussed later.  The most common use for redstone dust is to put it directly on top of blocks.
You can place redstone dust on top of blocks by right-clicking just like you place any other block.  You can put redstone dust on most solid blocks, but some blocks don't like redstone very much and won't let you put it down no matter how politely you ask it.  When you put redstone dust on blocks it forms a wire.
I will talk about wire in the next post, that's enough of this one.
Thanks for reading and please stay tuned for more updates.  This blog is starting with the basics and working up gradually, so keep reading to find out more exciting things you can do with this amazing stuff!