Building a quadcopter drone from parts

It's been many years since I've built a quadcopter from parts. What triggered this project was stumbling across the SpeedyBee flight controllers which have a powerful STM32 F405 and bluetooth so they can be configured wirelessly from a smartphone app. The controller has the motor controller (ESC) board mounted under it which makes for a much neater arrangement than the last time I did this which involved have ESCs on each arm of the drone.

Here's a closeup of the flight controller with ESC board under it.

The SpeedyBee uses a version of Betaflight. It arrived with the latest version. I've added a GPS module and was hoping to get a GPS Hold mode but that doesn't seem to be available in Betaflight. There are comments that even if it were available it doesn't work very well due to the poor accuracy of GPS position.

Here's my list of parts:

Frame

FPVDrone 5 inch frame Mark4 225mm FPV Racing Drone Frame Carbon Fiber 5inch Quadcopter Freestyle Frame Kit with Lipo Battery Strap $79.67 Amazon

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B082SPT5D9

Receiver

FLYSKY FS-A8S V2 2.4G 8CH Mini Receiver PPM I-BUS SBUS Output for Flysky FS-i6 FS-i6S Airplane FPV Racing Drone Transmitter

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005699957173.html $12.87

Transmitter

Flysky FS-i6X 10CH 2.4GHz AFHDS 2A $$57.01

Buzzer

5V buzzer $2

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32996116481.html

Motors 2300KV

RS2205 2205 2300KV CW CCW Brushless Motor for FPV RC QAV250 X210 Racing Drone Multicopter $24.78

GPS

GPS BN220 $12.26

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006319024804.html

Flight controller and ESC

SpeedyBee F405 V3 30x30 Flight controller + 50A BLS 4 in 1 ESC

$109.88

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005486457877.html

Flight controller:

https://www.speedybee.com/speedybee-f405-v3-bls-50a-30x30-fc-esc-stack/

5-inch propellers

5x4x3 5040 three blade ebay.

I already had a transmitter but it's rather bashed up and getting unreliable. I also have batteries in stock.

All up about AU$250.

Once I got the propellors turning the right way and enabled Horizon mode it flys quite well. Next step is to add a camera and transmitter. This will be a good "knockabout" drone for hoisting antennas and other such activities.

Betaflight?

I was surprised to see that the SpeedyBee flight controller runs Betaflight as when I last played with this stuff the Cleanflight fork was the leading software. It turns out the modern Betaflight is now a fork of Cleanflight and is the most popular and up to date. This is explained on the excellent documentation wiki.