Machine sellers quote throughput. The number that matters is how many pounds you actually put through it, because that is what pays it back. This works that out at today's copper price.
Gains use this site's live copper grade prices and move daily. Recovery percentages are typical for each cable type; weigh a sample of your own to check. Machine prices are 2026 manufacturer and distributor figures and exclude freight, dust extraction and any electrical work.
Pounds, not hours
The most common mistake in buying one of these is reading the throughput rating as a payback figure.
A machine that processes 1,000 lb an hour still needs the same tonnage through it to earn back its price. If you generate 200 lb a month, a faster machine finishes the same 200 lb sooner and pays back at exactly the same rate.
Throughput is a capacity constraint. Volume is the payback driver. Buy for the material you have, not the material the machine could handle.
Strip what you can, granulate what you cannot
These are not competing options; they handle different cable.
Stripping removes insulation and leaves the conductor intact, so the output is bare bright, the top grade on the board. It works on thick single-conductor cable and fails on anything fine.
Granulation chops cable and separates copper granules mechanically. It handles the fine-strand, mixed and low-grade wire stripping cannot touch, and the output grades below bare bright because a granule is not an intact strand.
Select a thick cable above and the tool says so rather than selling you a machine. Most operations that grow end up running both, and a granulator does not replace a stripper.
Check the realisation figure
The percentage input matters more than it looks. Granulated copper sells below bare bright, and how far below depends on your buyer, the purity your machine achieves and the granule size.
Good machines reach 99.9 percent purity using specific gravity or air and vibration separation. Poor separation leaves plastic in the copper and the grade falls further.
Ask your buyer what they pay for granule before applying any assumed figure, including the 90 percent default here. It is the single input most likely to be wrong for your situation.
What separation efficiency actually means
The purity figure in a specification is the difference between selling clean granule and selling contaminated material at a discount.
Good machines reach 99.9 percent or better using specific gravity separation, or air combined with vibration. Poor separation leaves plastic in the copper, and a buyer who finds it grades the whole lot down rather than the affected portion.
Three things degrade it in practice:
Wet or dirty cable. Moisture affects air separation directly and mud adds weight that reports as copper on the way in and as loss on the way out.
Mixed diameters in one run. Machines set for a nominal size handle a spread, but a wide mix reduces both throughput and separation quality.
Worn blades. Dull cutters produce inconsistent granule size, which is what the separation stage relies on. Blade replacement is a running cost worth asking about before purchase.
Ask who buys the granule first
This is the question most often skipped, and it decides whether the machine earns anything.
Granulated copper is a different product from stripped wire. It goes to consumers who melt it, and not every yard that buys your insulated cable will buy your granule, or will pay a sensible rate for it.
Establish the outlet before the machine arrives. Ask what purity they require, whether they want it screened to a particular granule size, what they pay against the bare bright benchmark, and what minimum quantity makes a delivery worthwhile.
If the answer is that nobody nearby buys granule, the machine turns a saleable material into one you have to freight a long way. That is a real failure mode and it is entirely avoidable with two phone calls.
Before the price, check the supply
Power. Entry machines run single-phase 220 to 240V with a 3 kW motor. Mid-range and production machines need three-phase, and full lines specify 480V at 200A. A machine you cannot power is not a bargain.
Dust extraction. Granulation produces insulation dust. Better units include a cyclone collector and filtration; if a quote does not mention it, ask whether a separate system is required and what it costs.
Cable diameter. Entry machines take rigid cable to about 10 mm and flexible to 15 mm. If heavier cable arrives regularly, that decides the tier before price does.
The granulator guide covers the tiers, specifications and the four cases where one does not pay at all.