How do you get Redstone Dust in Minecraft?

Redstone Dust is obtained through mining Redstone Ore, Redstone Dust from Witch drops, Redstone Dust from trading (Cleric), and Redstone Dust from chest loot. No crafting grid makes Redstone Dust, and 17 recipes take it as an ingredient.

What is Redstone Dust used for?

Redstone Dust is a crafting ingredient, and it goes into Block of Redstone, Clock, Compass, Copper Bulb, Crafter, Detector Rail, Dispenser, Dropper, Note Block, Observer, plus 7 other items that call for it.

How many Redstone Dust can you stack?

Redstone Dust at 64 a slot, and Block of Redstone takes 9 per craft, so a full slot is 7 Block of Redstone with nothing left over. A full backpack of 36 inventory slots carries 2,304 at once.

When was Redstone Dust added to Minecraft?

Redstone Dust was added in the 1.0 full release.

Redstone

Redstone Dust

The fundamental component of redstone circuitry. Placed on blocks to create wires that transmit redstone signals up to 15 blocks.

Stack Size

Durability

N/A

Redstone Dust at a glance

Minecraft files Redstone Dust under Redstone: a redstone component you get from mining Redstone Ore, Witch drops, trading (Cleric), and chest loot. Carrying Redstone Dust is cheap: 64 to a slot, 576 across the hotbar, 1728 in a chest.

Redstone Dust earns its place in redstone by what it does to a signal, and that behaviour is the building block under the farms, doors and machines that run without a player standing there. 17 recipes in this catalogue start with Redstone Dust, so it behaves less like a single item and more like a supply you keep topped up. It sits between Redstone Comparator and Redstone Lamp in Redstone, number 18 of 29 there.

Used to craft

17 recipes call for Redstone Dust, from Block of Redstone to Target, and Redstone takes 13 of them. Each link below opens that recipe with Redstone Dust in the grid.

How to obtain

Mining Redstone Ore
Witch drops
Trading (Cleric)
Chest loot

Notes

Signal strength decreases by 1 for each block of redstone dust. Used in crafting many redstone components.

Frequently asked questions about Redstone Dust

How do you get Redstone Dust in Minecraft?
Redstone Dust is obtained through mining Redstone Ore, Redstone Dust from Witch drops, Redstone Dust from trading (Cleric), and Redstone Dust from chest loot. No crafting grid makes Redstone Dust, and 17 recipes take it as an ingredient.
What is Redstone Dust used for?
Redstone Dust is a crafting ingredient, and it goes into Block of Redstone, Clock, Compass, Copper Bulb, Crafter, Detector Rail, Dispenser, Dropper, Note Block, Observer, plus 7 other items that call for it.
How many Redstone Dust can you stack?
Redstone Dust at 64 a slot, and Block of Redstone takes 9 per craft, so a full slot is 7 Block of Redstone with nothing left over. A full backpack of 36 inventory slots carries 2,304 at once.
When was Redstone Dust added to Minecraft?
Redstone Dust was added in the 1.0 full release.

Building with it

Redstone dust is the wire of the game: it carries a signal fifteen blocks before it fades, climbs blocks in steps, and powers whatever it runs into. Ore drops four to five per block with a plain pickaxe, and Fortune raises that sharply, so one deep vein supplies a whole build.

In practice

Wire carries a signal fifteen blocks and loses one step of strength per block, so the sixteenth block gets nothing at all. That fade is the whole reason repeaters exist, and it is also what a comparator measures when it reads a container, since a chest that is half full outputs roughly half the strength.

All Items Redstone