[Mini-guide] Turning a nether portal on and off

Discussion in 'Player Guides, Tips and Tricks' started by ShelLuser, Jun 25, 2017.

  1. Hi gang,

    Figured I'd share this with you guys as well. Couldn't sleep, remembered an interesting thread 'elsewhere' about turning a portal on and off. At first I didn't think this was possible but then discovered a weird trick with water. So I figured, before turning in again lets share this with you guys as well.

    The lever triggers the portal: on/off

    Simple right? Lever off means the portal is off and when you pull the lever it'll turn on. Push the lever again and things turn off again. Why would you want this? Well... Surely you know how noisy a nether portal is? This will help against that.

    So how do you build this? Well, it's quite simple. Note though that I didn't bother myself yet to optimize the circuits or anything, I literally just designed & build this approx. 20 minutes ago.

    Building materials: 2 dispensers, 2 observers, several flint & steels, 1 bucket of water, 2 comparator & 3 repeaters and some redstone dust.

    First you want to build the portal and place the dispensers as I've showed in the picture above.

    Then go around the back and build this (I'll explain):


    The speck of redstone dust (right side) sits behind the lever. When the whole thing is off (as shown) the torch is active. This torch powers a comparator set in subtraction mode (place & right click once) as well as a repeater set to 2 ticks (place & right click once).

    What that does is prevent a redstone signal from getting through when you turn the lever on. Right now there is no signal coming out of the comparator. And when you turn the lever on the torch will go off and well... There still won't be a signal. This prevents the observers from getting triggered when you turn on the portal.

    Behind each observer is a repeater. One set to 2 ticks (right click once) the other set to 4 ticks (right click three times). This will ensure that a double pulse is generated when you turn the lever off. This is needed because the water block needs to be placed and picked up again (you probably don't want to flood your base).

    The only caveat is the flint and steel getting used up, but because you can use several of 'm in parallel (the dispenser will use a random one each time) it will take a while before they're all used up.

    UPDATE (edit): You can compact the design a bit by removing nearest observer (and repeater behind it), and instead setting the repeater which goes into the comparator to 4 ticks (so maximum delay). Now the right circuit will generate the repeating pulse and the observer will observe & use it :D

    SO yeah... Nether access without getting that noise all the time.
    607 likes this.
  2. Would it be possible to have it close behind your back? That way, you might be able to control it so that you leave through one portal and come back through another, allowing for teleportation through the overworld. :)
  3. Only shelly, I'd go for this system here, it's cheaper & smaller, it only is a little more complex to build:

    If you place the obsidean at the right place, and also fill in the sandstone, it's compleatly seamless. There's a piston under the sand block facing upwards, next to that you are able to see every redstone component of this system (Yus that back repeater goes in to nothing, it's just there for the opserver) Also, water goes in the left up, flint&steel in the one down below. I hope that helps :p
    TomvanWijnen, ShelLuser and 607 like this.
  4. After more than two hours of tinkering around together with Jelle, finding many more smaller designs, we think we've found the smallest design possible...



    All the redstone needed can be seen in this picture. The piston is a regular piston. If desired, three hoppers can be placed in the left over space for extra flint and steel, without increasing the overall size of the redstone.
    (EDIT: forgot to say, the flint & steel goes in the left dispenser, the water bucket in the right dispenser)

    This is what it looks like with the portal around the redstone. (the Jelle is not needed for building, though it would be an advantage ;))



    We've also turned it into a 3x3 version, which uses exactly the same redstone materials.



    Oh, and this is what some of our designs look like.... excluding the many retries on some. :p



    :D

    Now time for a one hour and 45 minute delayed lunch! :p
    607, ShelLuser and Jelle68 like this.
  5. Nice! The "piston in your (observers) face" is definitely my favorite so far! :D
    TomvanWijnen, Jelle68 and 607 like this.