Hello everyone,

What can I say? So far so good?

Database Workbench 4 Pro was released just over a month ago and things have been very well since then. There was a number of (small) bugs and of course, there's room for improvement, 4.0.1 was released after a week and 4.0.2 is on it's way...

But all in all, the whole Unicode conversion went quite well! But there was more, internally there have been some changes to component sets, for example and many people have been asking what we use to connect to the different database systems...

Here's some info about Database Workbench:
- InterBase & Firebird connectivity by DevArt (IBDAC)
- MySQL connectivity by DevArt (MYDAC)
- Oracle connectivity by DevArt (ODAC)
- NexusDB native connectivity, obviously by NexusDB
- Microsoft SQL Server connectivity using Delphi ADO components
- Sybase SQL Anywhere connectivity by Liodden Data (NativeDB)
- ODBC connectivity by SoftVector (ODBC DAC)

- modular structure by using a combination of Delphi Packages, DLLs and Interfaces
- capable of importing & exporting multi-GB CSV files by using a custom written CSV parser

People have been upgrading from DBW v2 and v3 to the latest in large numbers, thank you for that!

Database Workbench Lite
And the free Lite Editions? Yes, they are on their way... They should be ready with 4.0.2, feel free to install these editions at customer sites to do some work or check queries. But for your full-time development, get yourself the Pro Edition and continu supporting us.


Thanks!

The rally in 2009 was great fun, despite the problems we've had... As always, there was tons of work in the last few weekends and weekends, but we got things running fine. Or so we thought.

The new power steering worked great! It was a lot of work and although the steering pump was fastened not in the best of ways, it did the job just fine. A last small leak during the Unimog Club Nederland meeting was fixed soon after and the punctured tyre during that weekend was fixed the week after. Good good.

The new generator seemed to hold up pretty well too but we did notice a bit of v-belt slipping when wet. And wet we would get... The all new wiring was great too, no problems so far and at least I finally knew what wire did what.

I had a new roof made between the UCN weekend and the rally, it looks great.

Coming back to the camp in Dresden meant feeling familiar and we met people from the 2008 rally. There was still a lot to do:

- replacing the leaky shocks (we got new ones at the beginning of June)
- fixing windscreen cleaning
- adjusting brake shoes (new linings just before)
- trying to get the generator v-belt a bit tighter

The prologue was fun but due to a hard-to-drive mud-pit, it took way too long and because we had to do 2 rounds, a ride to a nearby quarry and 1 other round, that last round was driven in the evening when it was dark already.



Before the quarry, we tried tightening the v-belt again, replacing it with a new one, it slipped badly.

All in all, we finished the prologue in quite a good time.

But next came trouble, the 2nd day, there was the show start at the Augustus Bridge in the middle of Dresden and then off to Hohenmolsen, an awful long drive... Our service truck had gearbox trouble, but we were able to make it in time. During the run in Hohenmolsen we had starter trouble but after taking it off (annoyingly, the modified engine cooling pipes were in the way) and testing it, it was fine again. Apparently, it was locked in the flywheel ring-gear, this happens sometimes. Off to driving again... but we got lost at a certain point and never made it to the finish... That sucked as all in all, we weren't doing that bad.

The gearbox trouble of the service truck turned out worse than was thought before and we decided to cancel the long drive and the next day in the race as we had to replace the gearbox there and then. During the evening/night, the old gearbox was removed and in the morning a new one was fetched from Hellgeth and installed. Off we went, but this sure cost us a lot of time.

There was more trouble later: the generator light stayed on sometimes, and we knew what that meant from 2008: this would end up in no power. We removed the voltage regulator, cleaned it and it would work again, but the slipping v-belt was still there and there was no way we could tighten it even further... This started to become very annoying. Annoying as well were the breaks: the new break linings appear to be of very bad quality and I went through those as butter, 1 week rally and they were gone completely, this meant we had to adjust the brakes every day and I could feel breaking power become less during the day.

Luckily, there were also plenty of moments of good fun, like passing someone in a water hole without trouble.


During the next few days, we easily went through a swamp where lots of cars and trucks got stuck by careful driving, we pulled down a tree trying to winch ourselves out in a tight spot, broke the winch cable, had trouble with the generator and batteries again and again and again, got the help from a Polish garage owner who drove us all over town to get new v-belts, drove for hours on the highway to make it back to camp instead of going into the forest (until it was 06:00 in the morning), blew up our batteries and ended up in camp for the last 2 days...



On the day before the last, we didn't drive as we had to get a new voltage regulator, a decent one. After installing it, we did the victory run on Saturday, but our fuel pump kept playing up! It didn't work properly, was it damaged by the previous voltage regulator that gave out 50V instead of 28V max? Who knows...

We made it to the finish!! And back to camp, turned OFF the car, drank a beer and tried starting it up again to put in on the truck for transport. No luck. It -just- made it.

There it was, we made it again and finished at 14th place in our class (out of 19, OK)


Now, what to fix for 2010... :-D

More pictures at www.brabant-breslau.nl

I've noticed two video's on Youtube with Die Breslau 2008 material, here they are:

video 1 (our truck in a watercrossing at 09:00)
video 2 (waiting in the back for a though corner at 09:51)

Enjoy!

Sponsors
Thanks to IBPhoenix for sponsoring the rallye coveralls, they're great.

There's still room for stickers on the truck and banners on the website, for just a few Euros, you have a chance to put your logo on it and get a nice framed picture in return!


More to come later!

It's not that long before the rallye starts, I was hoping to say that we were finishing up on things, but nope, not there yet :)

Last weekend we started to install a Unimog 406 power steering in our Unimog 404, quite some work as, of course, it just doesn't fit in easily. We had to cut some parts from the cab to make it fit.


New steering housing (to the right) and oil pump

Other things have been taken care of, the changes so far since last year:
- completely rewired the entire Unimog
- installed a new modern powerful generator instead of the old heavy one
- created a new dashboard
- installed new brake pads, checked and refurbished all brake cylinders
- removed concrete weight at the back, seemed to heavy
- checked the winch for wear, checked and modified PTO shaft
- all sorts of small stuff...

Other things that have been arranged includes a service crew of 5 people (yay!), transport of the trucks (yay!) and much more...

Sponsors
Thanks to IBPhoenix for sponsoring the rallye coveralls, they're great.

There's still room for stickers on the truck and banners on the website, for just a few Euros, you have a chance to put your logo on it and get a nice framed picture in return!


More to come later!

Hello everyone!

We will be participating in the "Breslau Rallye 2009", our starting positions are known (mine is 320)!



Later this month, our team website will be translated to English.

The rallye will be taking place in Germany and Poland, many pictures and videos will be taken, mostly to be seen in these countries. But, also plenty of visitors to this blog and our team website.

For this event, we are looking for (mini) sponsors. So, does your company want to have its logo on our website and get mentioned in blog posts, then contact me (see link at the right side of the screen).

With regards,

Martijn