Redstone dust is easily one of the most interesting elements in Minecraft for newbies. It is useless on its own, but it can easily become the most powerful item when paired with the right items. Now, that’s only possible if you know how to effectively use redstone dust in Minecraft. And believe it or not, it’s much easier than you might think.
Before you proceed, check out all the ways you can find redstone dust in Minecraft. Once you have collected enough redstone, check out the best ways to use this material in the game:
1. Crafting Redstone Components
As a crafting ingredient, you can use redstone dust to craft the following items:
- Block of Redstone: Powers redstone machines and can be broken down into redstone dust
- Clock: Reveals if it’s day or night in the Overworld
- Compass: Points towards the world spawn point
- Detector Rail: Detects the presence of minecarts
- Dispenser: Throws and uses different items
- Dropper: Used to drop items
- Note Block: Plays musical notes that change based on the blocks placed beneath
- Observer: Notices block changes and send out redstone signals
- Piston: Pushes blocks, mobs, and items
- Powered Rail: Boosts minecarts
- Redstone Lamp: Switchable light block
- Redstone Repeater: Repeats redstone circuits and redstone signals
- Redstone Torch: Activates redstone machines and sends Redstone signals
- Target Block: Detects projectile and sends redstone signals
- Copper Bulb: Emits light based on oxidation stage and can be turned on and off
- Crafter: Completes crafting recipes and auto-crafts items in Minecraft
2. Use Redstone to Make Potions
Other than as a crafting ingredient, you can also use redstone dust to brew and improve potions in Minecraft. If you put redstone dust in a brewing stand alongside a water bottle then you will get a mundane potion, which doesn’t have any effect or power.
But if you brew Redstone dust with any other time-based potion, you will end up increasing the duration of that potion’s effects. You can use redstone dust with the following potions to extend their duration:
- Potion of Fire Resistance
- Potion of Invisibility
- Potion of Night Vision
- Potion of Poison
- Potion of Regeneration
- Potion of Slowness
- Potion of Strength
- Potion of Swiftness
- Potion of Water Breathing
- Potion of Weakness
- Potion of Leaping
- Potion of Slow Falling
3. Use Redstone Dust in Circuits
In the simplest of terms, you can use redstone dust as a “wire” for all the Redstone machines and circuits. It doesn’t emit or detect any redstone signals on its own. Instead, redstone dust carries signals from one redstone component to another.
You can also place it on top of blocks and one-block-tall sides of opaque blocks in-game alongside hoppers, upside-down stairs, top-half slabs, and glass blocks.
But you cannot place redstone dust in the air, underwater, or in lava. When placed next to another block or redstone component, Redstone dust takes a wire-like form when used to connect items, as you can see in the image above. Otherwise, on its own, it stays like a plus sign.
If you right-click on the plus sign, it turns into a dot, which prevents it from connecting to any sides. Moreover, when Redstone dust receives power, it starts glowing in a bright red color.
How to Use Redstone Dust as Wire in Minecraft
To understand the functionality of redstone dust as a wire, follow the steps below to learn to switch on a redstone lamp from a distance:
- First, place a lever on top of any solid block.
- Then, a few blocks away from that lever, place a Redstone lamp.
- After that, connect the lever to the Redstone lamp by placing Redstone dust between them. You don’t have to follow a straight line or the shortest path while placing Redstone dust, however, that is the most effective way of placing redstone dust.
- Once you are done placing redstone dust, flick the lever and see the Redstone dust carrying power over to the Redstone lamp, lighting it up.
This is one of the simplest ways to use Redstone dust, but with this knowledge, you can experiment further with these complex mechanics and other redstone blocks.
And just like that, you are now ready to use and experiment with Redstone dust in Minecraft. But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get enough ideas for using this powerful feature. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by Redstone and its components. That’s why we already have a guide that goes over various Minecraft farms, which usually rely on redstone. You can also find easy tutorials for each farm in the same guide.
With that said, how do you plan to use Redstone dust? Tell us in the comments below!
The only way to make Redstone dust is by putting a block of Redstone on a crafting table or by smelting Redstone ore in a furnace.
Most non-opaque blocks don’t allow Redstone to conduct power. But exceptions to this include barrier blocks, hoppers, upside-down stairs, top-half slabs, and glass blocks.
Even though it’s not its intended use, you can use Redstone to prevent mobs from spawning within a particular idea. No mob in Minecraft is allowed to naturally spawn on top of Redstone dust.
Power from a redstone power source can travel for 15 blocks, or 15 redstone dust before you have to use a redstone repeater to extend the signal or place another power source.
