How to get copper wire in Pacific Drive

Copper wire is a resource you’ll need in Pacific Drive to make electronics and things to charge up your car’s battery. You also don’t find copper wire in the same places you find most other resources as you explore the Damp Forest and Blistering Woods of the Outer Zone.

Our Pacific Drive copper wire guide will tell you where to look for copper wire (and electronics and 9v batteries) and what you’ll use it for.

How to get copper wire in Pacific Drive

Copper wire and most other electronics-related resources don’t usually show up in the places you usually collect resources like dumpsters, car trunks, or storage containers. And it’s not immediately clear where to get it.

Image: Ironwood Studios/Kepler Interactive via Polygon

You collect copper wire by using your scrapper on things like radios, phones, computers, and TVs. There is even a computer and a radio on a shelf next to the wrecked car outside of the garage that you can scrap every time you return to your base.

Image: Ironwood Studios/Kepler Interactive via Polygon

Outside of your base, you’ll find consumer electronics inside of buildings — check the counters in ARDA trailers for radios and computers, and check houses for phones and radios. Rarely, you might even find radios outside of buildings or in shipping containers.

Other resources that drop from consumer electronics are things like plastic, electronics, and the occasional 9v battery.

Image: Ironwood Studios/Kepler Interactive via Polygon

Another good place to look is the small ARDA research outposts. They don’t show up on the map, but you can spot them from the distinctive lead shielding racks and blue-purple sodium vapor lights. Scrapping the lights, receivers, and lab computers at these locations will get you a ton of useful materials including copper wire and electronics (and that lead comes in handy later).

Copper wire recipes in Pacific Drive

Likely, the first time you’ll notice you need copper wire is crafting a battery jumper (4 9v batteries, 2 copper wires, 1 electronics) — those are all resources you’ll collect from consumer electronics. Battery jumpers recharge 30kW into your battery.

Both the bulbs (2 glass shards, 1 pressurized cartridge, 1 copper wire) and light replacement kits (1 copper wire, 1 bulb) that you’ll need to repair your headlights need copper wire. So do crude headlights (2 plastic, 1 duct tape, 1 copper wire, 5 road flares) and headlights (2 glass shards, 3 copper wire, 1 electronics, 1 bulb).

You’ll also need it in an electrician’s kit (1 9v battery, 2 copper wire, 1 electronics) that repairs electrical damage to things like headlights.

A bit later in the game, you’ll need more copper wire for things like the LIMpulse emitter (4 scrap metal, 4 copper wire, 4 electronics, 2 plasma) to repel bunnies and the auto parker (4 pressurized cartridges, 2 copper wire, 2 electronics, 4 gears) that keeps your car from rolling away every time you forget to put it in park.

For more resource guides, here’s how to get chemicals in Pacific Drive, and how to expand your inventory.