Auto door project

[doggo240]

I am a complete novice at electronics and would much appreciate some help with this simple project.
I am making a 12v auto door closer for my fowl house. It consists of a battery, a photoswitch and a car door lock actuator. The actuator is a sealed unit but I am pretty sure it consists of a 12v motor and some gears.
The load from the photoswitch is connected to the VCC terminal of the delay timer with a loop to the common terminal of the module. Under test but with no load the device works fine. When the light drops to the appropriate level  the power flows to the delay timer which switches after the set number of seconds.
However when I connect the actuator to the NC terminal of the delay timer module it does not switch and keeps powering the actuator. The same thing happens when I try to run the actuator directly from a 12v digital time switch. The relay component of the delay timer is a Songle SRD-12vDC-SL-C and it is supposedly rated for 10 amps at 30V DC.
The actuator pulls in about one second and then continues to draw 1.8 amps (I think - on the 10A setting the multimeter reads 1.
Would a 30A 12v automotive relay added in series help?
Thanks. I hope this question is not too dumb.

[SL4P]

First guess - is the driver capable of driving the motor/solenoid?
Can you post a pic or quickie schematic of your setup?

[doggo240]

Thanks SL4P. What I don't understand is how the relay can be rated at 10 amps and yet not be capable of driving a 1.8 amp load.
I will try to post a rough schematic.

[SeanB]

The photocell also has to deliver the motor current. You probably would be better to use the delay switch normally open contact and use the timer as a pulse generator with the common fed directly from 12V. What timer module are you using, for this simple application you can even use a very simple RC timer consisting of a 4700uF 25V capacitor in series with the relay coil, and a 1k resistor across the photocell output to discharge it.

[SL4P]

@SeanB is correct.
The way your schematic drawn, the + supply passes through the photoswitch to the relay [ hence the current limit is capped by the weakest series component (the photoswitch?)

Both proposals are valid - you've chosen the first, it just needs tweaking in the implementation.