WhereRaw for date comparison not working

Hi All,

I have a chained when query that is used for input searching to build a dynamic query. I for some reason cannot get the date comparson to work.

In my query the date column is a timestamp, ive tried

        ->when($start_date, function ($q, $start_date){
            return $q->whereRaw('DATE(t.timestamp) >= ?', [$start_date]); //Y-m-d
        })
        ->when($end_date, function ($q, $end_date){
            return $q->whereRaw('DATE(t.timestamp) <= ?', [$end_date]); //Y-m-d
        })

as well ass

        ->when($start_date, function ($q, $start_date){
            return $q->whereDate('t.timestamp', '>= ', $start_date);
        })
        ->when($end_date, function ($q, $end_date){
            return $q->whereDate('t.timestamp', '>= ', $end_date);
        })

this is my full query, please let me know if there is something wrong.

        $data = DB::table('Client_Transactions as t')
        ->leftJoin('Client_Accounts as c','c.ClientID', 't.ClientID')
        ->leftJoin('Facilities as f','f.id','t.facility')
        ->leftJoin('materials as m','m.id','t.material_id')
        ->leftJoin('outbound_locations as o', 'o.id','t.outbound_location_id')
        ->select(
            'c.ClientID as ClientID',
            'c.Client_Name as Client_Name',
            't.timestamp',
            't.material_id AS material_id',
            'm.name AS Material',
            'f.name AS FacilityName',
            't.load_type AS LoadType',
            't.facility AS Facility',
            'o.name as Receiver',
            DB::raw('concat(month(t.timestamp),"-",dayofmonth(t.timestamp), "-",year(t.timestamp)) AS "Date-String"'))
        ->when($material, function ($q, $material){
            return $q->where('t.material_id', $material);
        })
        ->when($start_date, function ($q, $start_date){
            return $q->whereRaw('DATE(t.timestamp) >= ?', [$start_date]);
        })
        ->when($end_date, function ($q, $end_date){
            return $q->whereRaw('DATE(t.timestamp) <= ?', [$end_date]);
        })
         ->when($receiver, function ($q, $receiver){
           
            return $q->where('t.outbound_location_id', $receiver);
        })
         ->when($clients, function ($q, $clients){
             
            return $q->whereIn('c.ClientID', $clients);
        })
        ->when($terminal, function ($q, $terminal){
           
            return $q->where('t.facility', $terminal);
        })
        ->when($load_type, function ($q, $load_type){
           
            return $q->where('t.load_type', $load_type);
        })
       ->when($page > 1, function ($q, $page){
            $offset = 10 * ($page - 1);
            return $q->offset($offset);
        }, function ($q){
            return $q->offset(1);
        })
        ->when(!$pdf, function($q){
            return $q->limit(10);
        })
        ->orderBy('t.Timestamp','desc')
        ->get();