ok so ive been flying prebuilts for about a year now and i finally decided to just do a proper scratch build. got a darwin129 frame sitting on my desk and a set of motors i grabbed during a sale - theyre the Emax Eco II 2306 1700kv ones. now im trying to figure out what ESC to pair with these and honestly the more i read the more confused i get.

someone in a facebook group told me i need at least a 45a ESC per motor for 6s but then someone else said 35a is fine and ive seen builds running 30a on similar motors without issues. like what actually matters here, the burst rating or the continuous? and does it make a difference if i go with a 4in1 vs individual ESCs for a 5inch. i was leaning toward a 4in1 just to keep wiring cleaner but idk if there are thermal issues in a smaller frame. any help would actually be awesome because im going in circles on this

the burst vs continuous thing trips everyone up at first. continuous is what matters for sustained flying, burst is just what it can handle for a few seconds before it throttles or dies. for 1700kv 2306 on 6s you're really not pulling insane amps unless you're doing very aggressive racing lines, 35a continuous per motor is genuinely fine. i've had Hobbywing Xrotor 40a 4in1 on similar setups for ages with no thermal issues even in a tight frame. just make sure you have decent airflow to the stack and dont completely enclose it.

4in1 is the right call for a 5inch imo, way less spaghetti and modern ones handle heat much better than the old days. just solder your motor wires clean and dont leave them too long.

also worth noting the frame choice matters a bit for this - darwin129 has decent stack clearance if i remember right so heat shouldnt be a nightmare. i ran a 4in1 on a similar size frame and the only time i had ESC issues was when i had a bad solder joint on a motor pad that was basically arc-ing intermittently. took me forever to find it. just go slow when you do the soldering, clean iron tip, good flux, and tin everything before you join it. sounds obvious but i rushed my first build and paid for it