so ive been flying bind and fly quads for about a year and finally decided to do a proper scratch build. picked up a Source One v5 frame because everyone seems to recommend it for first builds and its cheap enough that i dont feel bad if i mess something up.

my problem is figuring out motors and ESCs. i keep reading different things. like some people say you need to match the ESC amperage to your motor stator size but then other people say just go 45A ESCs for everything and call it a day. im planning to run 2306 or 2207 motors on 4S, probably emax or something in that range, and i genuinely dont know if a 35A ESC is going to be enough or if im just wasting money going 45A or 55A.

also do i need to care about the FC stack brand matching the ESC or can i just mix whatever? i was looking at a speedybee F405 stack but the ESC in the combo is only 45A and i wasnt sure if thats fine for racing or if i should get a standalone 55A 4in1 instead.

sorry if this is a dumb question, i just dont want to smoke anything on the first flight

not a dumb question at all, this stuff is genuinely confusing when you first get into it. short answer: 45A is totally fine for 2306/2207 on 4S. you'd have to be doing some pretty serious HD freestyle or racing to actually push past 45A sustained and even then its more about burst current which most modern ESCs handle fine momentarily.

the speedybee F405 stack is honestly a solid choice for a first build, the software support is good and betaflight picks it up without you having to hunt for custom config. FC and ESC brand dont need to match, you just need the ESC to support the protocol your FC is outputting - DSHOT300 or DSHOT600 mostly, and pretty much everything in the last 3-4 years supports that.

one thing id actually pay more attention to than amp rating is burst capacity and the FETs the ESC is using. cheap 35A ESCs with garbage FETs will die faster than a quality 35A unit. the speedybee stuff has been reliable in my experience, id just run with the combo stack and not overthink it for a first build.

yeah what he said about the 45A being fine. i built basically the same setup last year, source one with 2207 2550kv motors on 4S and ran a 45A 4in1 the whole season without issues. i did blow one ESC but that was my fault, i had a short in the wiring that i ignored for too long lol.

one thing nobody told me when i did my first build - get a smoke stopper before you power it up the first time. its just a lightbulb wired in series and it can save your whole stack if you have a short somewhere. learned that the hard way on my second build not my first one but still