Hi

I'm also a entry level HG timelapse and I'm loving it with qdslrdashboard and LRTimeapse demo version.

My question is:
A few days ago I was shooting a sunset and I wanted the photos to be more representative of reality, as the real light was getting darker, so, just like Gunter explained in the most recent tutorial, I pressed (-) button on the left side of the "Set reference now" on qdslrdashboard button for several times to darken the exposure. However it never changed the exposure into a more darker photo.

I did not use "set reference now" because the "Floating Average" value was higher than the "Reference" value, which would lead to the opposite effect of what I wanted, right?

Can someone advise me on how it really works?

Regards

Changing the reference will not instantly change any settings, it will just define when the next change in settings occur (sooner or later).
For example, you are shooting a sunset. You have a reference of 1000 and the avg value ist coming down from 1400 to lower values (because it's getting darker). So if you lower the reference to 800, qDDB will just wait longer before changing the camera settings - this leads to darker pictures then.
Of course it only works, while the avg value is still getting lower. If you already reached the darkest situation (in the city this happens rather early, because of artificial light) the avg value will not get lower anymore. Decreasing the reference any more will then not help. If this happens, just turn off the "Auto Holy Grail" (it won't do anything anymore anyway) and change the exposure/iso manually, if needed.

Now I got it it will take longer when I increase the numeric difference between the Avg and Reference

By the way, and still regarding your example of a sunset, do u advise to increase the Reference (to diminish the difference) towards the Avg, in order to obtain a darker capture more rapidly. For example to increase from 1000 to 1300 when the Avg is 1400?

No, not necessarily.