Day-1 iron farm (iron armour on your first day)

442 iron an hour · 665 blocks · 0.67 an hour per block · 11 iron to build · dust-pulse farm with three watchers, its kill below the villagers' range, dug 11 deep (needs 44 redstone dust)

Villagers scared by a zombie summon iron golems; the farm kills them and collects their iron in a chest.

To build it: 11 iron in hand, 1 bucket of lava and 4 villagers from the village. Starts by itself the first night. Restarts by itself when you come back after days away.

47 minutes from the first block to a full set of iron armour, then 442 iron an hour · needs 44 redstone dust

442 iron an hourIron farm3D view loading (or not available in this browser)

Try it

Press play to watch it work: the villagers sleep at night and panic at the zombie by day, golems spawn and die, and the hoppers carry their iron to the chest; the top right counts the game's time, the golems and the iron. The magenta floor is where a golem can spawn, seen through the blocks (Spawn spots hides it). The chest tagged OUT, under the last hopper, collects the iron. In the game, build it and wait near it.

How this design does it: 1 module(s); golems spawn on a 6x6 pad 7 below the beds and fall through its dry hole into a pit corner 21 below the beds under one lava source.

Build it

Download .litematic Download the design as text

The .litematic opens in Litematica (Minecraft 26.3): every block of the design in one region. The text file is the same build written as plain text, block by block.

Pour in the water and the lava where the view shows them.

Blocks used: chest cobblestone cobblestone slab hopper lava oak boat oak button oak fence gate oak pressure plate oak trapdoor oak wall sign red bed redstone torch redstone wire repeater torch villager wall torch water

What it is made of

Each part of this farm, what it takes to build, and the version of it this farm uses: follow a part to see its other versions side by side.

part	this farm's	blocks placed	blocks dug	build time
Villager cage	dust-pulse cage, 3 watching villagers (regular)	24	59	18 min
Sleep trigger	its own · other versions	31	0	4 min
Golem spawn area	6x6 dry floor 7 below the beds	40	0	3 min
Golem drop	open drop 13 blocks down to the kill	26	244	6 min
Kill chamber	lava corner after a 14-block drop (out of the villagers' range)	11	77	4 min
Collection	its own · other versions	2	0	3 min
Access	spiral staircase with a fence-gate hatch	43	103	5 min
At the farm's spot	8 cobblestone slabs capping stray golem spots and 17 cobblestone seals	25	167	counted above
The whole farm		202	650	43 min

Details: how it works, measurements and properties

In depth

villagers scared by a zombie summon iron golems; the farm kills them and collects their iron in a chest

How to try it

Press play to run the farm. The villagers sleep in their beds at night and panic at the zombie by day, golems spawn, fall and die in the lava, and the hoppers carry their iron and poppies to the chest. The chest tagged OUT, under the last hopper, collects the iron. The top right shows the game's time, the golems so far and the iron in the chest; the speed menu plays it faster or slower. Drag to look around, pinch or scroll to zoom.

Measurements

On Hard, through rain, thunder and lightning.

metric	value	what it means
iron per hour per block	0.67	iron ingots an hour for each block you place
iron per hour	442	iron ingots an hour
iron range	95% 439-446	the range its rate falls in, 95% sure
golems per hour	110.5	iron golems an hour
seconds per golem	32.6	the time between two golems
share of ceiling	92%	how close it comes to the game's limit: one golem every 30 seconds for each group of villagers
modules	1	groups of villagers that each summon golems on their own
iron per hour per module	442	iron ingots an hour for each group of villagers
kill	15.85 s	how long a golem lives before the farm kills it, at the longest
kill tail	the longest 25.2 s: no golem outlived 1 min in 17,687 golems (95% bound 0.02% a golem)
golems at the zombie	0 of 17,687 golems targeted the farm's zombie
lips	none (no golem stands dry beside a current)
restarts after a missed night	yes	whether it starts again by itself after a night its villagers could not sleep (rain at dusk, a storm, you away)
restarts after days away	yes (unloaded or not ticking	whether it starts again by itself when you come back after days away
back	by day or at night: the first golem 0.0-0.1 h after the return)
rain	clear day 442 iron/h; rain day 439 iron/h; thunder day 440 iron/h	iron an hour on a clear day, a rainy day and a stormy day
lightning	about 0.0 iron lost per thunderstorm; no villager ever turned into a witch; the zombie's boat broken never; a fire that can reach the farm (its flammable blocks or mobs or drop path) about every 4,938 game days; site note: a fire on the site that cannot reach the farm about every 7.6 game days; AFK spot struck: about every 1,627 game days (a 7 x 7 opaque non-flammable roof over the player's column with its block 4 above the player's feet prevents it: a single block over its column does not); no natural flammable block lies on a fire's way to the farm; a skeleton trap horse on the farm about every 2,439 game days (every 35 game days of thunder; a lightning rod topping its column within 128 blocks prevents it); a skeleton trap horse that triggers (within 10 blocks of the AFK spot) about every 3,890 game days (a lightning rod within 128 blocks topping its column takes the bolts: none then); the farm breaks in about 4,938 game days (a fire reaching the farm first); thunderstorms 1.4% of the time (5 min 10.55 s each on average)	what thunderstorms cost: the iron a strike burns, and how often a strike turns a villager into a witch, breaks the zombie's boat or starts a fire
thunder loss	3.1	iron lost for each hour of thunder
sunburn	never (the zombie never sees the sky)	whether the zombie can burn in daylight
fire	never	whether the lava can set the farm on fire
bill	11 iron, 0 quartz, 4 villagers, 4 beds, 1 zombie	what it costs in survival: iron (hoppers, the bucket and every tool you need), quartz, villagers, beds
payback	1 min	how long the farm takes to make back the iron it cost
build time	43 min at day-1 prices (202 placed with 8 cobblestone slabs capping stray golem spots and 17 cobblestone seals, 650 dug, 1 lava trips, 4 villagers moved; the most: 4 villager_moved 720 s, 650 dig 650 s, 202 place 202 s, 1 zombie 180 s, 1 hopper 154 s, 7 repeater 140 s, 1 lava_trip 120 s, 1 tool:bucket 90 s)	about how long the build takes: placing and digging its blocks, fetching the lava, moving the villagers in
time to an iron kit	47 min at the cheapest spot (from dawn of day 1 until the chest holds 24 iron; runs 47-47 min; 47-48 min over the 12 nearest spots)	about how long from starting the build to a full set of iron armour (24 iron), its own iron counted
build minutes	43.0
t kit minutes	46.8
collecting	33 s per trip to the chest (2 x its depth, 35 layers
at	the access's speed)
iron per hour sleeping	442
volume per module	6,720
entities alive	6.5
entities peak	9
iron	burnt per golem 0.02 (0.4% of the loot; 1 golem in 144)
tools	bucket 3 + iron pickaxe 3	the tools you need and the iron each one costs: a bucket for lava and water, shears for leaves, an iron pickaxe for redstone dust
lava sources	1	lava source blocks to bring: one bucket trip each
materials	day 1	the stage of the game its materials need: day 1, the Nether (quartz, slime, magma...) or the End
chunk columns	1	how many 16 x 16 chunk columns it covers
storage	3.5 h (32 slots; 111 poppies/h)	how long its chests and hoppers hold the iron and poppies before they fill
hoppers per 1000 iron/h	2.3	hoppers for each 1000 iron an hour: each hopper costs the server a little work every tick
spot	village-edge at -345 61 246 (the cheapest of the 12 nearest valid spots)
exposures	in village-edge (-345,246): C2 entry baby zombie 1 cells
bat	456
cave	spider 1
creeper	1
fox	1
pillager	1
skeleton	1
slime	1
zombie	1; C4 presence village villager 623 cells
village	golem 1,389; C6 pickup baby zombie 11 cells
fox	11
pillager	11
skeleton	11
village	villager 11
zombie	11; C8 creepers creeper 134 cells
creeper	113; C9 endermen an enderman 32 cells; C10 flyers phantom 1 cells; C11 fire lightning 3 cells
build minutes	flat 42.5
villagers	left 4
hostile	break days exposed: C2 entry; C8 creepers; C9 endermen
real game	yes, in rain and in thunder too	it works in the real game too, in rain and in thunder
redstone dust	44	the redstone dust its blocks take to craft (a repeater or a comparator 3, an observer 2, a piston 1...): redstone ore needs an iron pickaxe to mine

Notes from its designer

1 module(s); golems spawn on a 6x6 pad 7 below the beds and fall through its dry hole into a pit corner 21 below the beds under one lava source.

Properties

Study	Mob farms
Kind	Day-1 iron farm (iron armour on your first day)
Blocks placed	665
Box	12×35×16 (6720 blocks of space)
Inputs / outputs	no input / OUT
Flags	variation
Design file	`dust-pulse-three-watchers`

The design file

on GitHub

Design file (650 lines)

# Iron farm: 442 iron an hour · 665 blocks · 0.67 an hour per block · 11 iron to build · dust-pulse farm with three watchers, its kill below the villagers' range, dug 11 deep (needs 44 redstone dust)
# https://vjeux.github.io/redstonepedia/farms/iron/dust-pulse-three-watchers.html
# CIRCUIT: seconds per golem 32.6
name: pulsewr-s3b0-pad6f7x-1-pit21-n1-dug11
access: built
afk: 2.5 12 4.5
circuit: mob-farm iron_ingot day-1
ground: 11
how: golems fall out of sight into a lava pit
restart: yes
terrain: cells
port output: 0 -23 3
entity: minecraft:villager 0.5 0.5625 0.5
entity: minecraft:villager 2.5 0.5625 0.5
entity: minecraft:villager 4.5 0.5625 0.5
entity: minecraft:oak_boat 2.5 0.5 -6.8 {Passengers:[{id:"minecraft:zombie"}]}
entity: minecraft:villager -1.5 0 -0.5
origin: -5 0 -8
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  Z minecraft:redstone_wire[east=up,north=none,power=0,south=none,west=side]
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  t minecraft:torch
  w minecraft:wall_torch[facing=east]
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