so ive been flying whoops and tiny builds for about a year and a half now and finally decided to commit to a full 5inch freestyle build. been doing a lot of reading and i think i have most of it figured out but the stack is where im second guessing myself.

going with a SpeedyBee F405 V3 stack, mostly because the bluetooth config stuff seemed convenient and the price was reasonable. frame is a Apex HD from RDQ, motors are gonna be Xing2 2506 1900kv. running 4S for now maybe 6S later but probably not.

my main thing is im not sure if the F405 stack is gonna be limiting me in any way compared to something like a Mamba or a Foxeer stack in the same price range. i dont really care about bleeding edge performance, i just want reliable and not a nightmare to wire up. im doing my own soldering and the last ESC i soldered was a 20x20 whoop stack so going to 30x30 is already a bit of an adventure for me.

anyone run the SpeedyBee F405 V3 specifically? any weird gotchas with the BEC current or the uart situation? i keep reading about people running out of uarts but i dont fully understand how many i actually need for a basic build with vtx and a gps that i might add later.

the F405 V3 is honestly a solid choice for what youre doing, dont overthink it. ive had one in a build for about 8 months and the only issue i ran into was the motor order being a bit different from what Betaflight expects by default but thats like a 2 minute fix in the motor tab. BEC is fine for a 5inch, it'll handle your VTX and a camera no problem.

for uarts on a basic build with a VTX and receiver youre using maybe 2-3 uarts tops. the GPS will eat one more if you add it later. the F405 V3 has enough for that, just read the docs on which ones are full uarts vs the ones with limited functionality, SpeedyBee's own docs are actually pretty decent for once.

one thing i will say, get yourself some good flux for the ESC pad soldering. the pads on that stack are fine but 30x30 motor wires are chunky and if you've been on whoop stuff your iron tip might need to be cleaner than you think. solder bridges on ESC signal pads are not a fun afternoon.

i went Mamba F405 mk2 on my last 5inch and tbh im not sure id pick it over the SpeedyBee if i was doing it again. the SpeedyBee app thing for configuring over bluetooth is genuinely useful especially when youre on a field and dont have a laptop. the Mamba docs were kind of a disaster and i spent way too long figuring out the VTX uart pin.

your motor choice is interesting though, 2506 on a 5inch freestyle feels like a lot of motor? like not wrong necessarily just curious what you're going for with that. most people i see doing freestyle are on 2306 or 2207 territory. might just be personal preference but worth thinking about if youre not already locked in on those