There is no question the Falcon equipment has generally greater capabilities, but the question is, "Are those capabilities necessary?" There is no general answer to the question. It depends on each person's needs and budget. There is also a time element. Meeting the immediate needs may not allow one much room for expansion in the future. That might seem to suggest one should always go the Falcon route, but it is simply not the case. First of all, most of us have to live within a fairly strict budget, and spending more on each piece of equipment means buying less equipment. There is also always a problem with the crystal ball. One can spend more money on more capable equipment with an eye toward future expansion, only to find when the future arrives, something better has come along and one needs to spend even more to upgrade to the latest and greatest. If money is no object, then to be sure go with the most capable platform, which in this case means Falcon. For those of us who live in the real world, a little monetary planning will get us a better bang for the buck, and for myself, at least, that meant Lynx / Zeus for this passed year, and probably this coming year, as well. For those of us with more extensive shows, Falcon - at least in part - may be a better choice, especially if buying everything new up-front.
I used a very important word in that last paragraph: planning. In order to eliminate the frustrations you (and others) are having, I submit planning is the key. There is a better word for it, and many here may not like it, but again, it is in my opinion absolutely essential. The word is, "Engineering". As a professional engineer, laying out the engineering for a project is second nature to me, and consequently I have suffered only one of your frustrations - pixel failures. No amount of engineering can eliminate hardware failure, but keeping extra equipment on-hand will help lessen the blow. Not only that, but honestly, pixel failures are far easier to fix than dumb string failures. Most dumb strings are wired serially, and finding the failed element in a 50 or 75 node serial light string is a monumental PITA. With a failed pixel, I don't even bother to troubleshoot. I just replace the last working pixel and the first non-working pixel with a new pair of pixels. At under $0.25 per pixel, it definitely is not worth my time to try to figure out which one is bad, and it takes no more effort to replace two pixels than one.
Honestly, by far the biggest frustration I have had this year is finding the time to get the hardware built. Indeed, I am still working on it.
My show includes 8 roof-mounted star-bursts (pixel based) and 48 candy canes (dumb light strips). I only have 3 of the 8 starbursts finished, and I have not even started to wire out the candy canes. I did have to spend a fair amount of time (and money!) re-working several of the hardware prototypes, including the megatree, to get things to work properly. I am working on version 5 of the megatree right now, in fact, which will allow the tree to be assembled more easily next year. One might suggest if I were a bit less picky - or perhaps a better engineer - I wouldn't have to make so many revisions or spend as much time working on the display, but there you have it.
I digress. 'Back to engineering the electronics. One does not have to be a professional engineer to create these light displays, although without question it does help. One should, however, have a solid basic understanding of the electrical parameters of the equipment and how to design the power and data topology of the show. IMO, one
MUST have a thorough understanding of Ohm's law and how to calculate voltage drop in the pixel strings and the lines that feed them. One
MUST account for the total power needed by each power segment and by each fused section of the show - and don't be stingy with either one. One needs to be aware of the ampacity limits of each cable and take care not to exceed the ampacity of the wire in question... well, OK, not by much. I think we all sometimes stretch the NEC codes when it comes to how much current we send down the wires, and we all pretty much blast all Bellcore specs right to Hell. Just don't let the wires get hot to the touch.
Of course one must absolutely understand the addressing schemes, and I think this is one place a lot of us get into trouble. I find it very easy myself to forget each pixel uses
three DMX / Pixelnet channels when calculating my data realms. I have to keep reminding myself 128 pixels use 384 channels. It is extremely easy to accidentally overflow the current universe when planning for the display segments. It is inevitable to do so if one has not done the proper design planning.
Finally, one really needs to understand a little bit about data transmission and the limits of 1-wire data transport vs. 2 wire. The one issue I did encounter was trying to push the limits of pixel transmission a bit too far, but then it wasn't really frustrating when I had problems, because having engineered the displays, I knew I was pushing it, and was proceeding on hope, rather than expectations. I also knew the fix. My only regret is I had to spend more money to fix the issue, but c'est la vie.
Anyway, if one wishes to reduce one's frustration level, then one should go hit the books to learn a little basic electronics if necessary, and then come here to ask questions before planning next year's show. Then the only frustrations will be having the displays droop or even fall down when they weren't properly mounted, and explaining to the wife why one is spending so much money on all these lights. With the former, one or more of us here can no doubt help. For the latter, you're on your own.
