been going back and forth on this for weeks. building a 3inch toothpick style thing for cruising around parks and maybe some light freestyle. frame is a floss 3 knockoff i got from aliexpress, nothing fancy. planning to run 3s probably.

the problem is every thread i find says something different about kv. some people are saying go high kv like 4000+ for 3inch, others are saying mid kv around 3000 is fine on 3s and gives better efficiency. i get the basic concept that lower kv = more torque and higher kv = more speed but on a build this small im not sure how much that actually translates in practice.

also considering whether to just bump to 4s and run lower kv but then im worried about the weight from a slightly bigger battery. this is gonna be a sub 250 build ideally. anyone running a 3inch setup they actually like? what did you land on

3inch on 3s i'd go 3600-4000kv honestly. ive run a couple different setups and the lower kv stuff feels sluggish to me on 3s, theres just not enough voltage to get the snap you want for freestyle. if your going 4s then yeah drop to like 3000 and it'll feel more lively without burning anything up. the sub250 thing is tricky with 4s though, you really have to watch every gram ? battery choice becomes really constrained.

whats your target all up weight? because the frame choice and stack weight matter a lot before you even think about motors

i mean this is one of those things where there isnt really a wrong answer at that scale, the differences are pretty small in practice especailly if youre not racing. i built a 3inch cruiser last year with 2750kv motors on 4s and it flys great for what i use it for, smooth and efficient, good flight times. wouldnt call it a freestyle machine but thats not what i wanted anyway.

the sub250 goal is probably going to be your main constraint regardless of motor choice tbh. that floss knockoff frame, do you know the weight on it? some of those aliexpress frames are heavier than you'd expect. i got burned on that once