Hi Steve
Falcon Player doesn't need the extra processing power of a Pi4. You can happily run it on a Pi2 if needed. The Pi4's run quite hot and it's not really recommended to bang a cap/cape/hat on top of them without a fan or heatsinks on the Pi and with a cape on top that becomes hard to do. Because of the heat and the fact that there's no necessity or benefit in going to a Pi4 over a Pi3 I don't stock anything other than the Pi3B+. The board will however work fine (other than heat) with the Pi4's as long as you use the right Pi image as there's been updates to the Pi4 which screws up the hardware signature.
If you're just wanting to play then using a pixel tester or 2 and a power distribution like my Power8 or PSDIST1 will allow you to build props and do testing etc but with only basic control of colours etc.
Thank you Alan,
I've just sent an order through for enough bits to get me into trouble, but hopefully not too much.
The plan is to play around with some sequencing on a couple of strips to get used to the programming software. I'll start with xLights but have also downloaded and installed Vixen. While doing that, I'll start planning for stage 1 on the house, to work out what I'll need from there.
Thanks again, Steve