Going untethered on the Sigenstore 22kW 3-phase wall charger — what length and amperage Type 2-to-Type 2 cable is everyone actually running?
Already got the Sigenstore battery, inverter and gateway in, and now adding their 22kW AC wall charger to finish the loop. Going untethered rather than the 5m tethered option since I've got two bays to cover and the tethered cable won't reach the second one without some awkward routing. Never actually had to shop for a separate Type 2-to-Type 2 cable before, all my research so far has been on the wall unit and the app side of things, not cable specs. Trying to figure out whether I need the full 32A 3-phase rated cable to actually get 22kW out of it, or if a lighter single-phase cable would just bottleneck the whole system and make the wall charger's headline number pointless. Also thinking about a Canberra to South Coast weekender at some point and want a cable I could reasonably throw in the boot for that too, not just something that lives permanently on the wall.
Filed under: Home Charging AU
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12 answers
12 ANSWERS
@trent_b87July 24, 2026
To actually pull 22kW three-phase you need a cable rated 32A per phase, not just '32A' on the label without checking it's the 3-phase version — some of the cheaper ones are 32A single-phase only and will bottleneck you exactly like you're worried about. Length-wise, 5m covers most driveway layouts, 7m gets you the reach for an awkward second bay without dragging it along the ground. For the boot as well, a 7m 3-phase cable is heavier than most expect, closer to 4-5kg coiled, worth knowing before assuming it's a casual toss-in item.
Good to know on the weight, wasn't expecting that much. Does a 3-phase cable still work fine plugged into a single-phase destination charger on the road, or does it need the full 3-phase supply just to function at all?
Works fine on single-phase, it just negotiates down and only uses one of the three conductors doing anything. The cable itself doesn't care what's on the other end, that's handled between the car and the charger.
@petey_fxJuly 29, 2026
Whatever you land on, get in the habit of actually taking it with you every time you leave the house, not just for the road trip. Untethered means useless the one day you forget it — learned that one the hard way.
@bazza_wAugust 02, 2026
Does going untethered change anything if you end up with a mixed household of brands using the same bay eventually? Trying to work out if a cable like this is genuinely universal across Type 2 cars or if some of the cheaper imports still cut corners on the pin count.
Type 2 is Type 2 regardless of brand, all seven pins are standardised. What actually varies is whether the car itself can accept 3-phase input — some models are locked to single-phase no matter what cable you plug in.
@hankmoodyJuly 24, 2026
Complete beginner question, but does going untethered actually save you anything on the install itself, or is it purely about the flexibility of carrying your own cable?
Marginal at best on install cost in my case, maybe a small saving not needing the tethered cable gland. Real reason for me was the two-bay routing, not the price difference.
@fi_macJuly 24, 2026
Priced a 3-phase cable for a friend recently and the jump from 5m to 7m was steeper than the length difference should really justify. Worth shopping around before just taking whichever installer's default option.
@just_lurking22July 24, 2026
does a lighter single-phase cable actually bottleneck the whole 22kW setup, or does the wall unit only ever pull what the cable's rated for anyway?
@margs4lifeAugust 01, 2026
Still on a plain granny charger over here so half this thread goes over my head, but is 3-phase basically just the faster option or is there more to it than that?
There's more to it than just faster. Single-phase residential in most of Australia caps out around 7.4kW (32A at 230V on the one active conductor), that's the ceiling no matter what charger you buy. Three-phase splits the load across three separate conductors, which is what lets a unit like yours actually pull 22kW without any single conductor being overloaded. Two things that matter beyond the raw number though: not every property has three-phase supply run to it, and not every car can accept three-phase input even if you plug it into a 22kW charger — some are hard-locked to single-phase regardless of what's on the other end of the cable, so check that before assuming the full 22kW is actually reachable for your specific car.
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