maybe this is just me venting a little but i bought a prebuilt specifically to avoid setup time and ive now spent more time on it than if id just built from scratch. granted im partly to blame because i wanted to swap the rx to my existing frsky setup but still

the vtx wiring on mine was kind of a mess internally, like whoever assembled it just crammed the wires in and hoped for the best. had a short after my second flight. nothing burned but it was close

im not saying prebuilts are bad, i think for a true beginner they make sense because at least you have something that was tested at the factory. but the marketing of these things as plug and play is a stretch. curious if others have had similar experiences or if i just got unlucky with a bad unit from the batch

yeah the internal wiring on some of these is pretty rough. i tore apart an iflight last year just out of curiosity and there were a couple wire runs that made me uncomfortable. not dangerous necessarily but not how id do it. i think the assembly lines are just fast and not everyone checking tolerances the same way

that said ive also had prebuilts that were genuinely clean inside, so it varies by brand and honestly probably by production batch. iflight had some QC issues a while back and they seemed to address it but then it crept back up again based on stuff ive seen on rcgroups

the rx swap is always going to add time, thats kind of unavoidable unless youre buying into whatever rx system came with it. thats on the prebuilt marketing not you

honestly pretty much every prebuilt ive touched needed at least a once over before i trusted it. not even major stuff, just checking standoffs are tight, motor screws havent backed out, that kind of thing. i think of it less as ready to fly and more like... 90% of the way there with a 30 minute inspection remaining