ok so ive been flying prebuilt stuff for about two years now and i finally want to do a full custom 5 inch freestyle build from scratch. got a decent soldering setup and watched probably too many build videos at this point but im still going back and forth on the stack.

the frame is sorted, going with a tmotor f7 or maybe the GPS version of something, havent fully decided. motors are covered too. my main thing is the FC and ESC combo. been looking at the speedybee f405 v3 stack because the price is honestly really good and people seem to like it but i also see a lot of people running the aikon or the mamba stuff and i dont really know if theres a meaningful difference at my level or if im just overthinking it.

mostly gonna be doing freestyle in the backyard and maybe some proximity stuff at a local spot. not racing, not doing cinematic stuff. just want it to feel locked in on betaflight and not have weird issues half the time. any thoughts on what to actually go with here?

speedybee stack is genuinely solid for what you're describing, ran the f405 v3 on a build for about 6 months and the only issue i had was one of the uarts was a bit finicky with my gps module but that ended up being a wiring thing on my end. betaflight support is good, the app makes initial config way less annoying if you dont have a laptop handy.

the mamba stuff is fine too but ive had two mamba ESCs die on me over the years, might just be bad luck. if budget isnt super tight the whoop f7 or holybro stuff is worth looking at but honestly for freestyle in the backyard the speedybee will do everything you need it to. get the 45a version not the 30a even if youre running smaller motors, headroom matters more than people think.

what motors did you end up going with tho? asking because im in a similar situation and the motor choice kind of changes what ESC current rating actually makes sense. also did you decide on the frame yet