All Minecraft pressure plates and their uses explained

Minecraft has thousands of different blocks, most of which interact with each other. This exhaustive number can make understanding their function quite complicated. One such block (or plate for that matter) that often gets ignored is the pressure plate. Since they are often skipped, it leads to a lot of gaps in knowing how they work and their specific uses.

Pressure plates are mostly used to activate redstone signal, and in turn, make mechanisms work. While switches do the same thing, the former are more suitable for automation. But that's not all, there are more specific uses present. So in this article, we’ll explain the use of all the pressure plates in Minecraft, along with what makes them different from each other. Let’s get started.

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Explaining function of pressure plates in Minecraft

All the pressure plates in Minecraft (Image via Mojang Studios)

Before we get started with the use case, let’s first know what pressure plates do. These are interactable items in the game that get activated and send out a redstone signal. They can be used to open doors and activate other redstone mechanisms. There are four different types of pressure plates, and here’s the use of each of them.

Wooden pressure plate

Wooden pressure plate (Image via Mojang Studios)

The easiest pressure plate to make is the wooden one as it requires only wood to craft. These can detect all entities and produce a signal of 15.

It means that when a player or a mob such as a cow or a sheep stands on the wooden plate, it will give out a redstone signal and activate the nearby mechanism such as a door. Not just mobs, but if a player throws an item on the plate, it will send out a signal as well.

Signal strength in Redstone refers to how far the signal can reach across a redstone line. A signal strength of 15 is the maximum in Minecraft. So if the wooden pressure plate is connected to a redstone line, it will send out a signal 15 blocks ahead when activated.

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Stone pressure plate

Stone pressure plate (Image via Mojang Studios)

Since stone pressure plates are made up of stone, they require heavy entities to activate. Hence, these pressure plates can only be activated by the player or mobs. Throwing items will not activate these. Stone pressure plates produce a signal strength of 15, just like wooden variants.

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Light-weighted pressure plate

Light-weighted pressure plate (Image via Mojang Studios)

Light-weighted pressure plates are interesting since they get activated when any entity is present on them. So these will send out a signal if the player or any other mob stands on it, or if it has any items on it. But that’s exactly like a wooden pressure plate, right? Not exactly.

A lightweight pressure plate sends out a redstone signal of one per entity detected. This means that if a player or a mob or any item is on top of the plate, it will send out one redstone signal. This increases with an increase in the number of entities on the pressure plates.

So if there are five items on top of a light-weighted pressure plate, it will send out five redstone signals.

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Heavy-weighted pressure plate

Heavy-weighted pressure plate (Image via Mojang Studios)

Heavy-weighted pressure plates are just like light-weighted variants; they can detect players, mobs, and items on top and send out a signal. But unlike the latter, they will only send out one redstone signal per 10 entities detected. So if there are 10 items on the plate, it will send one redstone signal.

And that was everything about all the pressure plates in Minecraft.