Copper cable — Factorio Production Calculator
Copper cable is crafted in the assembling machine in 0.5 seconds, producing 2 per craft from 1 × Copper plate. At 60 per minute you need 0.5 assembling machines, and the chain behind it draws on 1 raw resources: copper ore.
Production chain for 60 Copper cable / minute
| Item | Per minute | Machines | Machine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copper cable | 60 | 0.5 | Assembling machine |
| Copper plate | 30 | 1.6 | Furnace |
Raw materials
| Resource | Per minute |
|---|---|
| Copper ore | 30 |
Machine counts are not rounded up. Add a little headroom in game — belt throughput and inserter speed usually mean you want 5-10% more than the exact number.
Copper cable recipe
| Machine | Crafting time | Output | Ingredients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assembling machine | 0.5 s | 2 | Copper plate × 1 |
What the whole chain needs
60 copper cables per minute pulls in 1 intermediate product, and the whole tree comes to 2 machines across 2 machine types, fed by 1 raw resource. The table above already sums demand across every branch — if copper cable is used by two recipes, you see the total, not one of them.
Belt check: the busiest input here moves 30 per minute, which is 0.03 of a yellow belt's 900 per minute. Above 1.0 and you need a second belt (or a faster tier) before the machines themselves become the limit.
What uses copper cable
13 base-game recipes consume copper cable, sorted by how much each one takes:
- Beacon — 10 per craft
- Substation — 6 per craft
- Arithmetic combinator — 5 per craft
- Constant combinator — 5 per craft
- Decider combinator — 5 per craft
- Power switch — 5 per craft
- Programmable speaker — 5 per craft
- Advanced circuit — 4 per craft
- Big electric pole — 4 per craft
- Electronic circuit — 3 per craft
- Lamp — 3 per craft
- Medium electric pole — 2 per craft
- Small electric pole — 2 per craft
What copper cable is made from
- Copper plate — 1 per craft
FAQ
How many assembling machines do I need for 60 copper cables per minute?
0.5 assembling machines. One at standard speed produces 120 per minute, so 60 ÷ that number is the count. The calculator above rounds nothing — add 5-10% headroom for belt and inserter losses in a real factory.
How much raw ore does copper cable take?
At 60/min the chain consumes 30 copper ore per minute. Those numbers are the theoretical minimum — mining productivity research and productivity modules both reduce them.
Is copper cable needed for science packs?
Not directly. It feeds Beacon and Substation, and those in turn feed the science packs. Open the science pack page to see the demand that lands on this recipe.
Machine counts assume bare machines at standard speed. Recipe data comes from the game's own prototypes (PlayerCalc, Factorio 2.0 base game). Not affiliated with Wube Software.