Power Cables sit in that useful middle tier of Arc Raiders loot: rare enough to be worth a detour, common enough in the right places to plan around. They upgrade your early workshop path and, when recycled, quickly convert into the wires most quests and blueprints lean on.

Power Cable item stats and uses

Property Value
Rarity Rare
Weight 2 kg
Stack size 3
Sell price 1,000
Found in area types Electrical, Commercial, Residential
Recycle output 4x Wires
Salvage output 3x Wires
Workshop upgrade Gear Bench 1 → 2: 3x Power Cable + 5x Electrical Components + 5x Hornet Driver

Recycle when you need wires; it yields more than salvaging. If you’re chasing early quests or blueprints that consume wires, a single Power Cable covers a meaningful chunk of the requirement.

Power Cable locations (maps and area types)

Power Cables are tagged to Electrical, Commercial, and Residential loot pools, but they most reliably appear in tech-heavy interiors where electrical components would be stored or used. Prioritize:

  • Facility hallways and back rooms with cabinets, desks, and tool chests.
  • Desks and racks with computers, server boxes, and other electronics.
  • Power rooms and control spaces attached to larger points of interest.

Because Arc Raiders’ loot tables are contextual, running “electrical” buildings and infrastructure nodes will outperform open residential sprawl.

Best places to search (by map)

  • Dam Battlegrounds: Control Tower, Research & Administration, and the Power Generation Complex. The interior corridors and offices here have high densities of containers with electrical and tech loot.
  • Spaceport: Fuel Control and the various Towers. If you’re roaming Spaceport and striking out, shift your route toward these utility structures rather than warehouses or open streets.
  • Buried City: Space Travel and Research. These administrative and research interiors surface the right container mix for electrical finds.

Tip: Walk the inside loops. Most of the good pulls come from hallway cabinets, office desks, and equipment bays just off the main thoroughfares.

Early-game farming route (reliable and low friction)

Start on Dam Battlegrounds and rotate between the Control Tower, Research & Administration, and the Power Generation Complex. Clear their interior hallways thoroughly—computers, server racks, file cabinets, and tool boxes—then extract. This loop concentrates the right loot pools without spreading your inventory thin across long travel segments.

Recycling Power Cables into wires

One Power Cable converts into four wires via recycling; salvaging only returns three. If a quest or blueprint is wire-gated, breaking down spare cables is a faster path than hunting loose wires one by one. Keep a small buffer of intact cables for the Gear Bench II upgrade, then recycle the excess.

Inventory, weight, and value

  • Weight planning: at 2 kg each and stacks of three, a full stack weighs 6 kg. Budget space if you’re committing to a facility sweep.
  • Value tradeoffs: selling nets 1,000, but the Gear Bench II cost (three cables) and the wire output make them more valuable as materials early on.

If you’re running co‑op, coordinate roles so one teammate carries electrical loot while another handles ammo and meds—minimizing duplicated weight lets you keep full stacks when you do hit a good run.

In short. Hunt Power Cables in electrical interiors and control spaces, especially on Dam Battlegrounds. Keep three for Gear Bench II, recycle the rest for wires, and use tight interior loops to turn inconsistent drops into a steady pipeline of materials.