Ever wondered how to calculate the machine speed of a five horsepower motor driving a machine through a 5:1 speed reduction V-belt drive? How about figuring out the deliverable horsepower of a 15 horsepower motor through a gearbox rated for 88 percent efficiency?

If you've ever encountered a customer with problems like these, consider enrolling in IDC-USA's course, “Power Transmission Principles.”

The Indianapolis-based member-owned distributor cooperative offers up to four sessions each year to distribution employees. INDUSTRIAL DISTRIBUTION sat in on the most recent session Sept. 16–20 to brush up on our PT skills.

IDC-USA president and CEO Jack Bailey told us the courses were developed from the groundwork laid by industry expert Bob Baker and his popular IDEAs classes years ago.

“Back in our early days in Greenwood, Ind., our member/owners said, 'It would be really nice to create some training classes we could send our employees to,' but we didn't have the space or the staff to do it at that time,” Bailey said, adding that once IDC expanded to its present location in Indianapolis the cooperative invited Baker to teach PTP and another course, Bearings 101.

“After he did one or two he was so impressed with our students that we began offering it exclusively through [IDC],” he said. “Bob did a great job and I think we improved on what he created.”

The courses are no-fluff, hands-on classes that aim to provide practical knowledge students can use every day in their work. The PTP offering covers the fundamental concepts of power transmission, the motors (or “prime movers”) that drive PT systems, tapered bushings, couplings, roller chain drives, V-belt drives, parallel reducers, worm reducers and variable speed drives.

Courses on power transmission aren't the only ones offered by IDC, Bailey noted. The group also offers a class on bearings, another on bulk material handling and a six-month strategic sales mapping course that involves some class time in Indianapolis, followed by Web-based instruction from any remote site with an Internet connection.

“That course promotes the theory that every territory is a company within itself and should be self-sustaining,” Bailey said.

PTP and bearings instructor Tom Clawser, sales and marketing manager for Brown Transmission & Bearing Co. of Lancaster, Pa., said that course is designed to be of practical use for students “where the rubber meets the road.”

“From start to finish, it's practical education. They can use this right away,” Clawser said. “Everything we do here we try to do from a practitioner's point of view, rather than from a theorist's. … It's designed in such a way that it figures out where [a student is] and takes [them] where [they] want to go.”