New to cable granulating uk!

Hello

I’ve been debating buying a cable granulating system for a couple of years now and I think I’m finally going to take the plunge.

I am an electrician by trade so will be doing this on more of a as and when I get cable as opposed to buying it in and having a machine running constantly. (Only Young so hoping even If I don’t do it much I’ll make the money back over the years)

So a few questions I have are,

Air or wet separation?

And how easy is it to get rid of the granules in the uk?

Any recommendations on small machines? Ideally nothing more than 100kg and hour.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks

Seb

My bet is the payoff time on a granualtor, AND the ability to sell granules may be big barriers. If it were me I would just get a wire stripper and start there. But if you have many many tons of it then maybe a granulator would be worth it. I dont even strip my wires, just sell as is usually..... quick, easy, makes the rest of the process someone elses problem. There may be a user or two on here that have granulators

Hi and welcome to the forum from Las Vegas! Dunno where you are in the UK but a couple of fellas recently joined the forum looking to get a chopper going. There might be some synergy there. Will DM them with a link to this thread. I've run two different choppers now but both were custom made for high volume 6000+kg/8hr shift so cannot offer a brand recommendation unfortunately. When you're shopping look especially for ease of blade changing and look at the style of blades to see if they'll be easy to have sharpened near you or if you'll have to go back to the manufacturer each time. For smaller machines like you're looking at motor quality is less of a worry due to lower demand on them but best to get motor specs to see what repairs might entail down the road. My absolute best recommendation is to invest in the travel necessary to see one in non-manufacturer use to get feedback from daily users.

Selling the copper granules will be easy. At the volume you'll accumulate running a chopper even very part time you should be able to get dealer pricing from the closest major yard for Cu #1 and #2. If Comex is trading copper at $2.60/lb it's certain you won't sell Cu #1 at dealer pricing better than $2.30/lb nor Cu #2 better than $2.20/lb and *very* likely less. Bringing in 225+ kg each time will help. Bringing 1250+ kg will really help your pricing!

Newer choppers have dry separation pretty much as good as wet so recommend that route, especially since you won't have to worry about your buyers docking you for moisture contamination. If you're under no pressure to sell the copper right away and can let it thoroughly dry before boxing up the wet separation does improve aluminum separation from the copper in my experience, should you be chopping wire with significant aluminum content alongside copper (closed eye heliax, a lot of phone charging cords, etc).

If you're getting enough wire through you're work to justify a granulator it can be a great investment and pay for itself much quicker than you'd guess.

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Originally Posted by kss

My bet is the payoff time on a granualtor, AND the ability to sell granules may be big barriers. If it were me I would just get a wire stripper and start there. But if you have many many tons of it then maybe a granulator would be worth it. I dont even strip my wires, just sell as is usually..... quick, easy, makes the rest of the process someone elses problem. There may be a user or two on here that have granulators

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I’ve had wore strippers before and have found them very labour intensive! Might be some newer and better ones out now though

Hello thanks for getting back to me. I didn’t think it would be a problem shifting the copper as at the end of the day it’s clean copper.

I’m glad you came back and said dry separation as I really didn’t want to go down the wet separation route. The only cable I’ll be stripping with aluminium is fire rated cable and the aluminium is only a foil so hopefully that should blow out the other side.

At the moment I’m stock piling cable so no rush to either get a machine or to sell on if I did get one!

All the best

Seb

Hey Seb,

JJinLV contacted me earlier and made me aware of your thread because I’m trying to achieve something similar to you, but on a nationwide scale. I've not long ago joined the forum and JJ’s been great in supporting myself and my business partner in our efforts to build a cable chopping line in the UK.

I understand that you’re only looking to achieve something low-key here and continue with your job alongside, but how would you fancy a chat at the very least to see if there’s any synergy between what we both want to accomplish? I think it could be productive.

Look forward to hearing back from you.

Josh

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Originally Posted by greenmetal

Hey Seb,

JJinLV contacted me earlier and made me aware of your thread because I’m trying to achieve something similar to you, but on a nationwide scale. I've not long ago joined the forum and JJ’s been great in supporting myself and my business partner in our efforts to build a cable chopping line in the UK.

I understand that you’re only looking to achieve something low-key here and continue with your job alongside, but how would you fancy a chat at the very least to see if there’s any synergy between what we both want to accomplish? I think it could be productive.

Look forward to hearing back from you.

Josh

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Hey josh can you give me a private message and we can have a chat?

All the best

Seb

Hi. I am also thinking about buying a granulator. I would be interested in having a chat with you both. If you can drop me a message that would be great. Thanks in advance

If your volume is small, you could pile up and then rent a mobile dry granulator. Easy setup, no service/maintenance. Simply curious, what is the plastics landfill fee/ton in UK?