Changeover cable from the Arlington assembly belt.

A vehicle line change is a compressed programme of demolition and installation. Equipment is disconnected, cable is pulled out of tray and conduit, and new cable goes in behind it. What leaves the building is mostly the old conductor, cut into moveable lengths and stacked wherever there is floor space.

The volume is high and the timing is rigid. A collection has to fit the window the plant allows, because once the line is running again the material in the aisle becomes a problem rather than an opportunity, and it gets moved somewhere less convenient.

Ask for the shutdown dates before anything else. A changeover lot is only collectable while the line is down or the material is still staged.

Robotic cells use cable built for movement: fine-stranded conductor, flexible jackets and a dress pack that carries power, control and sometimes weld current along the arm. When a cell is replaced, the dress pack is usually cut off and discarded whole rather than disassembled. The rest of the cell is somebody else's lot, and it is listed separately.

Welding circuits add another family. Welding cable is fine-stranded copper with a jacket made for flex and high current at low duty cycle, and in a body plant it is run in long loops to the gun. Both families age by flexing rather than by heat alone, and both show it at the same points.

• Describe a dress pack as a cable assembly with its connectors.
• Separate welding cable from control cable on the same cell.
• Note where the jacket is worn through to the shield or the conductor.
• Say whether VFD cable came from a drive output or a motor drop.

Around the plant, a belt of smaller plants does stamping, sequencing, sub-assembly and logistics. Their buildings are older and smaller, their services are modest, and their cable is a mix of machine feeder, control and conveyor wiring rather than the dense tray runs inside the assembly building.

These lots are easier to collect than the plant itself and often easier to describe. A plant with one building, one tenant and one electrical room can give a list that is accurate rather than representative of what somebody remembers from a walk-through. A plant with four additions and three landlords is a different proposition entirely.

The entertainment district produces a different kind of cable. Concourse power, kitchen equipment feeds, dimming and control for lighting, and the temporary distribution used around events all turn over on a schedule set by the calendar rather than by a production plan. A quiet week is the only week that work gets done in a building otherwise full of people.

Lots are smaller here and arrive more often. A concession rebuild or a lighting change booked between events can produce a pallet of mixed conductor and control cable that has nothing in common with a body plant changeover, and it is best listed on its own. Event schedules make the timing awkward and the material simple.