Ice castle battery setup

I was in the market recently for a smaller camper for myself and my 5 and 7 year old boys. Ended up buying an ice castle for the duel purpose. We love to camp and we love to ice fish. Seemed like a win win.

I have an idea for a battery upgrade but am not sure if it will work. I would like to keep the current (original) battery and then add two more in parallel to each other but not the original battery. Then add an inverter to the two batteries in parallel and connect it directly to the in house wiring. I would also like to have a switch so that I can flip back and forth between the batteries in parallel and the original battery. My intention is that I would be able to run the TV, fridge, and outlets (plus everything that normally runs off the battery without an inverter) off the two batteries in parallel. Then when we go to bed, flip the switch over to the single battery and run just lights off of it overnight.

This would be nice to stay as quiet as possible for longer while I’ve fishing and when camping. A lot of campgrounds we go to don’t have electric hookups so a generator and batteries will be necessary.

If that idea doesn’t work, I’d like to do just two batteries in parallel with an inverter and then a kill switch for the inverter. This way I could run tv, fridge, and outlets in the evening without needing a generator. Then when we go to bed, turn the inverter off and run just lights overnight.

If anyone has any ideas on if this will work and/or how to set it up, let me know! I’m new to all this wheel house/rv stuff. Thanks!

i added a battery in parallel to my original battery and then added an inverter. when im not using the house i unhook the inverter. my 2 batteries will run the furnace and lights a long time.

It works and pretty much did this on my new house similar to Coletrain

As much as anything it’s about what items are on what circuits.

Ex. I have furnace, lights, and inverter. I chose to send all three to the power block and then connect the power block to the batteries. If I want to separate the inverter then I just hook it up direct to the battery(assuming the inverter is fused).

I did either 2 batteries in parallel or a single. I found that a single worked well for an evening and 2 group 27s in parallel was good for 24 hours to about 50% drain. W

When it was -20 I used the single for the first 2 hours to bring the house up to temp and then manually moved the connections to the duals. You could do one of those Blue sea 1, 2, 1+2 switches which would be slick instead of moving connections.

Start with a Perko battery selector switch

If you want the best deep cycle setup, you can get Lithium Ion batteries, for about $700 each. The next best camper setup is a pair of golf cart 6V batteries. They are $90 each, and you connect them in series to get 12V. The plates are heavier, and the batteries are larger, so you end up with something that lasts longer and holds more energy. We use them on our trailer, and can get 3 days if the heater does not run all night. There are battery isolators that people use in truck campers and motor homes to charge the camper battery when the truck is running, but do not allow the camper to pull from the truck starting battery. Then, you need the same switch to power the 120V outlets from either the shore power or your inverter. This is also standard for RVs.

Thanks for the replies guys. I’d love to get lithium’s but not sure I wanna drop another 1400 on that right now. I ended up emailing the dealer I bought it from to see if they could install a two battery, inverter, and switch system. After doing more research, this isn’t something I want to do on my own. While I can build about anything out of 2×4’s, I’ve been on the receiving end of a few too many electric fences (and one cattle prod – payback will be had) to want to try and figure this wiring out.