Helle America!

Let's  go!

I bought a 12 Volt actuator/lineator

And a 12 Volt Photocell. Usually these come with a red, black and white wire but this one comes with a red, black and green wire. Black should get connected to the transformer +. Green goes to the transformer - and red is the load for whatever you connect. A light bulb perhaps but in my case an actuator.

And I bought a 12 Volt relay

The relay has numbers and when you insert the relay in the holder you have to make sure the numbers are correct so to avoid any mistakes I made a drawing for myself

On the left is the relay and on the right is the holder

I also got a 12 Volt 12 A transformer (of course)

Then I connected the lot according to this diagram

Now, I wasn't 100% sure if the black power line going to pin 4 and 7 is also connected to the top left number 1 but I don't think so.

Anyway, the small green LED in the relay never lit up. The actuator never moved. I changed + to - and then - to + again and made sure the room was pitch black and then very light (and waited plenty of time in between) but it never moved once!

So I disconnected everything and started all over again, EXTRA careful as not to make an error. The wiring ended up the same however and the end result was the same, the actuator never moved!

So .......... I connected the actuator directly to the transformer. Nothing ....... swapped plus to minus, fine!

 So the actuator works fine!

Then I tried the photocell connected to the transformer and the actuator. So without the relay.

Now, what did I do? As per drawing above first of all. But nothing happened. I then covered the photocell with a thick black camera bag. Nothing. I then swapped the 2 wires from the actuator as the current simply might have gone the wrong way. Nothing! So I swapped the + and - again, and again nothing!

Holy cow!

Never mind though, as these photocells do not live forever I bought 2. I also bought 2 relays. Just in case one would stop working after a year or so. Anyway, I connected the second photocell, wired it up as per above drawing again and nothing happened once again. So I swapped the red and black wire from the actuator again, light dark, etc. In short, I tried all possibilities again but the bloody thing never moved.

Conclusion: I am making an error and I suffer from a complete black out OR both brand new photocells are broken!

And because the photocells are broken (?) the relay doesn't work either!

Right?

H E L P !

...............

UPDATE Dec 26

Connected an old bulb, works fine 

Then I connected photocell 1

The light didn't work 

I covered the cell with a thick black bag. The light didn't work. 

I then tried the second photo cell - didn't work either.

Placed the black bag over it. (no picture of that)

Nothing again .......... the light bulb never lits up!

I then connected the bulb directly again, just to make sure it was still ok. (It was fine)

My conclusion: both cells are rubbish!

Agreed? 

Now,  I can close the coop doors myself at night (by pushing a button or something) but I don't want to wake up in the dark to open them.

So what is the cheapest solution to make sure they open in the morning automatically?

Upon request inside pics of cell here now