Hi Ashley,
Daslight and Nicolaudie both fall under the Nicolaudie Group. The DPAD GOLD and the STICK DE3 are the same hardware.
I assume i can use DASLIGHT4 software to upload scenes to this controller?
Is this controller astronomical aware (sunrise / set, moon phases etc...)?
It's possible to set Sunrise / Sunset Triggers in the software but not Moon Phases. In the Stand Alone window in Daslight 4 if you right click the selected Scene in the 'Show' side of the window the time trigger options will appear.
How do i get more than 8 external inputs, document seem to imply its possible but no solid information to tell me how.
Yes this is also possible, no power is needed, you only have to make a temporary contact between the ground (pin 2) and one of the 8 ports (pins 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). If 8 contacts are not enough, you can use several ports simultaneously to get up to 255 possibilities by using binary combination.
Hope this helps