Here's is a technical explanation on how it works:
1) Lunar Cycle reduces (never increases) intensities of all LED colors for the programmed hours of the day. It is a rough approximation of the 8 phases of the moon that occur throughout the month.
2) Intensities are reduced in 8 steps by multiplying the current intensity by a fractional number. The calculation is done every night at midnight, and one of the 8 multipliers are then applied to the current intensities based on which phase of the moon.
Intensity Reduction
New Moon .10
Waxing Crescent .20
First Quarter .40
Waxing Gibbous .60
Full Moon 1.0
Waning Gibbous .60
Third Quarter .40
Waning Crescent .20
As you can see, a full moon has no effect of intensities (multiplied by 1.0), so the nighttime intensities need to be set to the brightest, full moon level desired.
Take the example of setting ROYAL as your moonlight with an intensity setting of 5%. You would wind up with the following intensities:
Actual Results
New Moon 5% x .10 0%
Waxing Crescent 5% x .20 1%
First Quarter 5% x .40 2%
Waxing Gibbous 5% x .60 3%
Full Moon 5% x 1.0 5%
Waning Gibbous 5% x .60 3%
Third Quarter 5% x .40 2%
Waning Crescent 5% x .20 1%
Important Notes:
- Results are truncated to whole percent. Be careful when setting the "full moon" intensity less than 5%, or you will have 0% intensity for most of the month. The absolute minimum nighttime intensity to use Lunar Cycle should be no less than 5%.
- A full moon only lasts 4-5 days for the entire month, so the intensity setting of 5% won't be seen for 3 weeks.
- The year, month, and date must be correct for all of this to work.
- There are no intermediate steps or graduations beyond the 8 steps listed. The intensity reduction simply changes 8 times a month at the midnight hour.
