For my first ever brushless build, I figured a conventional 5" freestyle quad would be the best introduction to the process. Components are pretty standard all around - Betaflight F3, Emax 30A Bullet ESCs, Unify Pro Race and XM+ receiver. The HyperLite V2 motors are kind of outdated now, but they still have fantastic build quality for the price, and frankly I'm too much of a rookie pilot to get any benefit from something more exotic.

Smoothness was my top priority, so I soft-mounted everything, put a gigantic 35V/1000µF capacitor on the battery pads, and chose HQ 5x4.3x3 V1S props based on Kabab's mini-review.

When I started this build, I planned on using a Micro Swift camera so I could replace the rather tall 35mm stock standoffs with 25mm ones instead. Thanks to the BFF3 board and arm-mounted ESCs, everything fit comfortably with room to spare, but unfortunately the frame has so little clearance between the front motors and standoffs that the props would clip the top plate pretty hard with even minor deflection.

Since I was only doing it for cosmetics, it didn't seem worth the risk of a potentially catastrophic prop strike, so I went back to the stock standoffs and stuck a full-size Swift RR Edition in there to take advantage of the added height. On the plus side, putting slammed components in a taller build like this means I can even do minor field repairs without disassembling anything.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how this turned out, especially since it was my first ever attempt at building a brushless quad!

If there's one thing I wish I'd done differently, I would've bought my good soldering iron (a Weller WES51) before starting the build, instead of halfway through. The solder pads on the BFF3 suck up a lot of heat even under ideal conditions, and I started out with a $15 Radio Shack iron, so the joints on the ESC pads are ugly as hell. Everything runs fine on the bench, so at least performance isn't affected, but that was a good lesson to learn early on.

Having only flown brushed indoor quads so far, I still need more simulator practice before I can trust myself to maiden this thing without wrecking it on the first lipo, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Feedback is appreciated!