Create Wiki · Contraptions

Mechanical Bearing

The Mechanical Bearing spins whatever sits on its face: a swinging door, a Ferris wheel, a radar dish, decorative blades. It turns the rotation of a shaft into the rotation of a whole structure. The Clockwork Bearing, covered further down, does the same while following the in-game time.

Create 6.0.8 · Minecraft 1.21.1 · updated on

A plank, then a structure of glued planks, spin on the bearing, driven by cogwheels.

Quick facts

Category
Contraptions
Stress
4 SU per RPM (Clockwork too)
Speed
6° per second per RPM: one turn in 3.75 s at 16 RPM
Attachment
The block against its spinning face, plus whatever is glued or fixed to it
Stopping
The structure settles at the nearest right angle
Carried
A bearing carried by a contraption keeps its structure level
Clockwork
Hour hand, then minute hand, set to the in-game time
Version
Create 6.0.8 · Minecraft 1.21.1

Crafting table recipe

Wooden Slab
Andesite Casing
Shaft

→ 1 Mechanical Bearing

What spins

A plank, then a structure of glued planks, spin on the bearing, driven by cogwheels.

The bearing takes the block standing against its top face (or front face when lying on its side) and everything tied to it with glue or chassis. With nothing on it, it just spins empty.

Assembled as soon as it turns

The plank spins with the bearing

As soon as the bearing's shaft turns, the structure is assembled and pivots around the axis. At 16 RPM it completes a turn in 3.75 s. Our simulation counts the same duration as the scene, within one tick.

Powering the bearing

Rotation comes in through the face opposite the structure, from a shaft or a cogwheel. Flip the direction of rotation to make the structure spin the other way round.

A big structure

Structure of glued planks spinning

With chassis and glue, any shape spins as one piece: blades, arms, a platform. Keep the area clear: a spinning structure passes through the scenery, but it shoves players and mobs around.

Stopping straight

The structure stops at a slant and then settles straight; the value panel changes that behaviour.

When rotation stops, the structure turns back into blocks. Since blocks cannot sit at a slant, it settles at the nearest right angle: a quarter turn of difference at most.

Three settings

Setting the bearing's mode

The value panel offers three choices: place the blocks at every stop, only place them near the starting angle, or keep the structure moving as long as the bearing exists. The last one suits decorative windmills and radars.

Speed and stress

A bearing turns 6 degrees per second per RPM: one turn in 7.5 s at 8 RPM, 3.75 s at 16, under a second at 64. It costs 4 SU per RPM. For a door, a low speed is enough and avoids jerky motion.

Build ideas

A swinging door on a bearing lying on its side, a merry-go-round on a slow bearing, decorative blades spun by a motor. To make power from wind, this is not the block you want: use the Windmill Bearing, which works on the same principle.

A bearing on a contraption

A bearing mounted on a spinning structure keeps what it carries the right way up.

A bearing can itself be part of a structure that moves or spins. It then becomes a stabilizer: whatever sits on it forms a separate sub-structure.

Always upright

The sub-structure stays straight during the rotation

That sub-structure stays level while everything else pivots, like the gondolas of a Ferris wheel. The carried bearing needs no power for this.

The Clockwork Bearing

A glazed terracotta hand turns to show the in-game hour; a click on the bearing starts or stops it.

The Clockwork Bearing (brass and electron tube) turns its structure according to the in-game time: an in-game hour lasts 50 s. It still needs rotation to animate; the faster it is, the sooner the hand catches up with the time.

The hour hand

The hand shows the in-game hour

The first structure acts as the hour hand: it turns to the current hour and then follows it. Right-clicking the bearing starts or stops the animation.

Adding minutes

A second structure, not glued to the first one, turns as the minute hand.

Another structure, placed ahead of the first one, becomes the minute hand. The two must not be glued together, or they turn as one. The bearing's setting can also swap their roles or use a 24-hour dial.

What the loops do not show

Particles and the clicking player are not drawn. The hour shown by the Clockwork Bearing follows the storyboard, not a real day.

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Sources for the numbers (Create 6.0.8 code)
  • Recipes: crafting/kinetics/mechanical_bearing.json, clockwork_bearing.json
  • Stress: AllBlocks.MECHANICAL_BEARING / CLOCKWORK_BEARING (CStress.setImpact(4.0))
  • Speed: MechanicalBearingBlockEntity (convertToAngular: speed × 3/10 degree per tick)
  • Stopping: MechanicalBearingBlockEntity.disassemble (angle rounded to a quarter turn), RotationMode (ROTATE_PLACE, ROTATE_PLACE_RETURNED, ROTATE_NEVER_PLACE)
  • Stabilized: StabilizedBearingMovementBehaviour, StabilizedContraption
  • Clockwork: ClockworkBearingBlockEntity.getHourTarget / getMinuteTarget (hour = day time / 1000 + 6), getHourArmSpeed (angular speed / 2), ClockHands (HOUR_FIRST, MINUTE_FIRST, HOUR_FIRST_24)
  • Simulation: WIKI/contraption_sim.py (carried blocks, movement times, ropes and actors recomputed from Create's code)
  • Scenes: BearingScenes.mechanicalBearing, bearingModes, stabilizedBearings, clockwork

Original texts and animations by Create France, rendered from the mod's Ponder scenes. Create is a mod by the Create Team, not affiliated with Create France.