Why does my minecart move by itself

Just as with redstone, minecarts can be used for just about anything you can imagine. Incorporating minecarts into redstone adds a whole new level of complexity to mechanisms and is fun to play around with.

Whether it's a minecart subway or minecart mechanisms fully incorporated into complex machines, there are many possibilities. Whether you want to move ore more efficiently or you're just interested in making something cool, minecarts are a fun, all too often overlooked, tool for creativity. As always, if you have any questions about how minecarts work feel free to leave a question down below in the comments section. Follow us on Twitter MinecraftHowTo!

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Perkster, this is a pretty old article, and was probably true for the version available when the game came out. Despite being year old this is a great article that explains a lot I need to know without actually spoiling the exploration of functions by myself. I have dont this personally in my house, with 1. Some Rules for Minecarts Minecarts behave differently in various situations. There are currently three types of minecarts: the passenger minecart, the furnace minecart for moving minecart trains, and the chest minecart for hauling items.

There are also three types of minecart rails: regular rails, powered rails, and detector rails. Regular rails are the workhorse of minecarts and are used most frequently, powered rails allow the player to power on and off sections of track and set the cart in motion, and detector rails are used as a sort of pressure plate for minecarts, because when you roll over them they activate a short burst of redstone. Detector rails are usually used to activate powered rails, but can be used to activate other redstone items.

Minecarts will come to a stop when they interact with other minecarts, powered rails that have been turned off, mobs, blocks, or water. Minecarts lose energy and momentum over rails at a rate of about. In order to start a minecart going, it must be powered or set on an incline. It is not possible to push a minecart and jump in to get moving. When a minecart traveling on a straight track encounters a curved track, it will continue on its predetermined path.

Getting Started Using Minecarts To get your minecarts going, you'll need to lay some rail. Subscribe Now. Great article. Since 1. Is this common? The last rail is a powered rail. If you have the minecart pushed all the way back onto the powered rail and hit the button, it will activate the rail and start you moving forward just from the push of the button.

Mini Mii It's a secret to everybody. User Info: Mac13eth. One powered rail per 10 is good to maintain speed. As an added bonus, the off-state rails will slow the car to a stop when it gets to the station. Sometimes I think I have gone mad, other times I just wish I had. User Info: tomma User Info: benjaminkc. Adding to the above: if you have your powered rail slanted, then the cart doesn't have to be flush against a block for it to start moving when the powered rail turns on.

User Info: PhilOnDez. Unless you're planning on moving a lot of chest carts 1 powered every 10 rails is overkill. It takes 3 powered rails to get up to max speed, then to maintain that speed it takes just one every 39 rails. When I build my tracks I usually put one as every 33rd track, half a stack of regular, then a powered. This way, if you decide to hop off, a single powered rail is close enough to propel you to the next one when you start moving again.

You also don't need to use red stone for multiple powered rails, power one and any touching it will will be powered as well, I think up to 7 can be powered by one torch Gatekeep your hobbies.

A dispenser replaces the solid block behind the last powered rail. The dispenser launches the minecart just like the solid block, but creates a convenient place to store extra minecarts.

To activate, use the button behind the dispenser to cause a minecart to pop onto the rail, ready for use. Players may want to detect whether a cart contains a player, because empty carts can clog a rail system. This is referred to as rider detection. A trip wire based design is quick to set up and reliably detects a player. However, it doesn't detect some non-player mobs, specifically 'short' mobs wolves, spiders, pigs, etc. To build, a tripwire is attached to hooks one block above the track.

Two blocks further is a junction which is set by default to turn empty carts back to the station. An empty minecart does not trigger the tripwire, so it is sent back. An occupied minecart crossing a tripwire sends a short pulse to the junction and continue along the rest of the track. Depending on orientation, the signal may need to be inverted with a redstone torch. The torch adds a minor delay, but this shouldn't affect the results. This design assumes the minecart is moving at top speed.

If your minecart is moving slower than that, you can either add delay to the wire using repeaters or increase the speed of the minecart with a booster just before the tripwire. Another method to check for a rider is to take advantage of the change in the speed of the cart, as an empty cart slows down more quickly. In this design, a minecart creates a pulse when it passes the detector rail.

If the minecart is empty, it gets to the turn just as the signal does and be sent back. If the minecart has a rider, it gets to the turn before the signal and be able to continue on. This design requires the track to be set by default to let the cart through.

When an empty cart is detected, generally it's a good idea to send it into an overflowing pile. An overflow pile is a drop of two or more blocks with a rail at the bottom. When carts are boosted into the hole, they snap to the track, regardless of how many carts are already on the track. This pile should be placed where the carts can be collected, either close to a station or in a maintenance area.

It is important to boost carts to full speed just before they are dropped to ensure they don't become stuck on the end of the track and eventually back up the system. Another variant of this method is to replace the rail at the bottom with a cactus, thus destroying minecarts that fall in.

Placement of a hopper next to the sand on which the cactus is placed then allows saving of at least some of the carts. A dispenser loaded with fire charges break minecart entities, dropping them as items. Placing a detector rail above a hopper, with the dispenser facing the detector rail, collects minecarts as items, which can then be stored in a chest or routed to a cart dispenser.

Boosters are a method used to prevent carts from slowing to a stop on a track. Because carts eventually slow to a halt on level track, and very quick turn around on regular rail track while uphill-bound, boosters are a method of assuring one's cart keeps moving. Boosters are simply a single powered segment of powered rail, powered through detector rails, redstone torches or levers next to them.

Refer to the diagrams to the right. Players generally keep the distance between boosters uniform, although these distances vary by player. One common, and according to many, the most efficient, distribution of powered rails is to place powered rail every 38 blocks on level ground. An easy way to place a lot of track using this count without needing to keep track of each rail is by dividing the rails into stacks of 37, as shown on the right.

Approximately 1 out of every 3 rails must be powered to travel uphill due to gravity. Stations often have one line leading to one destination. Multiple destinations require multiple lines. A junction is a fork in the track where the rider can select which destination they wish to visit. This design uses a lever to switch the track. The powered rail becomes powered after a preset delay. The detector rail starts the delay. In this design, the lever always points toward the selected destination regardless of direction.

A junction that has multiple destinations can be set up by expanding the junctions. In the design to the right, the rider is given much more time to select their destination than a two-way junction. They can select any destination by first selecting left or right, then forward or backward.

This design doesn't scale well but can be used in sequence to create any number of destinations. There are many, many styles of minecart destination selectors. Most are modular, meaning they can be extended to include more destinations. An RS-NOR latch array is often used to select a destination as these latches have a designated reset line as opposed to a t-flip flop which has only one input.

This design was selected for its simplicity and for its ability to be expanded with relative ease. One of the buttons on the selection panel is a designated reset line since additional input doesn't clear the previous selection; that is to say, a player can select more than one destination with this design although a launched minecart takes the left-most of the selected destinations. The following design is heavily influenced by the previous but uses a different RS-NOR latch design involving pistons.

It has a reset integrated in the selection such that a new input clears the previous one. By removing the designated reset line of the previous version, it allows for an additional station in a similar amount of space. This consists of a lot of curved tracks and many pistons. The pistons push the minecart extremely quickly down the line.

When a track system isn't working properly, it can be difficult to fix for someone unfamiliar with redstone and rails. Common solutions include:. Searching on the minecraft forums can help. If you need to create a new post, be sure to include the direction you're working the F number , as directionality can be a factor in the design.

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