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Learning path · 3 courses · 12 h 39 min · v1.0

Industrial Mechanic — Learning Path

The safety side of the maintenance trade: free self-paced courses, in the order the work needs them

Start with course 1 See the whole path
Not OSHA-authorized training. Everything on this path is a free study aid. It does not satisfy any OSHA training requirement and nothing is issued at the end of it — no card, no certificate, no document of any kind. Your employer's training program comes first.

Maintenance is the trade the standards were written around and the one least often trained as a whole. 29 CFR 1910.147 exists because of it — the standard covers servicing and maintenance where the unexpected energization or start up of equipment could cause injury — and yet a mechanic normally learns lockout on its own, machine guarding from an audit finding, and everything about electricity from whoever was around that day. This path puts the free courses on this site in the order the work actually needs them: the trade's own hazards first, then hazardous energy in the depth it deserves, then the electrical knowledge the job keeps demanding and the classified-area rules for the plants that have them. Everything is free, nothing asks for an account, and nothing is issued at the end — your employer still owes you the machine-specific procedures and the authorization that 1910.147(c)(4) and (c)(8) put on them.

What you will be able to do at the end

  • Explain why servicing and maintenance sits outside normal production operations, and the two conditions that pull work performed during production back under 29 CFR 1910.147
  • Find every energy path and every store of energy on a machine before you shut it down, and tell an energy isolating device from a control
  • Run the six steps of 1910.147(d) in order, prove deenergization instead of assuming it, and say why electrical work follows 1910.333(b) instead
  • Judge a guard, a drive, a bench grinder and a press against the paragraph that governs each one
  • Recognize the height, atmosphere and hot work hazards the repair adds on top of itself, and the permit each one needs
  • Hand a machine back with guards on, safety devices live, openings closed and every change declared — and know what is not a replacement in kind

How to use this path

  1. 1
    Take the courses in the order below. Each one assumes the vocabulary of the one before it — the first course explains what a competent person is, the second one uses the term without stopping.
  2. 2
    Do the 5-question quiz at the end of every part before moving on. If you miss two, reread that part: the quizzes exist to catch the chapters you skimmed.
  3. 3
    Finish each course with its 20-question final exam, then use the practice tests further down as a cold check a few days later.
  4. 4
    Your progress is stored in your own browser. No account, no email, nothing sent to us — and nothing to download at the end.

The path, step by step

Step 1 · Start here

Industrial Maintenance Fundamentals

4 h 58 min · 5 parts · 20 chapters · 5 quizzes + final exam

Start with the trade rather than with a single standard. This course covers what makes maintenance work its own hazard class, the six energies a plant holds and where each one hides, the words the standards use for you — authorized, affected, qualified, designated — and then the four subjects the work actually runs into: isolation and verification, guards and moving parts, height and atmosphere and heat, and the procedures and handback that finish the job. It also gives you the vocabulary the rest of the path assumes, and it is the only course here that treats the return to service as part of the repair.

Why 1910.147(b) counts lubrication, cleaning, unjamming and tool changes as servicing
The six energy types plus gravity, and what each one is still holding after the disconnect is open
The guards you are the only trade paid to remove, and the paragraph that puts that inside 1910.147
Return to service: guards reinstalled, safety devices reactivated, maintenance equipment removed
  1. Part 1 — The maintenance job and the risks that belong to it4 chapters
  2. Part 2 — Isolating the energy, and proving it is gone4 chapters
  3. Part 3 — Guards, moving parts and the machines maintenance touches4 chapters
  4. Part 4 — Height, atmosphere and heat4 chapters
  5. Part 5 — Procedures, records and putting it back4 chapters
Open “Industrial Maintenance Fundamentals”
Step 2 · Then go deep on hazardous energy

Lockout/Tagout Fundamentals

3 h 47 min · 4 parts · 16 chapters · 4 quizzes + final exam

Hazardous energy gets a whole course because it gets a whole standard, and because the difference between a program that works and a binder full of templates is in the detail. Part 2 of course 1 gives you the six steps and the verification; this one works through 1910.147 the way an inspector reads it — the program, the written procedure, the hardware requirements, the annual periodic inspection, group lockout and shift change, and the difference between lockout and tagout that most plants get backwards.

The energy control program of 1910.147(c), and the eight conditions of the documentation exception
Lockout versus tagout, and what a tagout demonstration of equivalent protection actually costs
Group lockout, the lockbox, and the transfer of protection at a shift change
The annual periodic inspection, its certification, and the retraining it triggers
  1. Part 1 — Hazardous energy and the standard4 chapters
  2. Part 2 — Energy sources, isolation points and devices4 chapters
  3. Part 3 — Doing the lockout4 chapters
  4. Part 4 — Making the program hold up4 chapters
Open “Lockout/Tagout Fundamentals”
Step 3 · Then the electricity the job keeps handing you

Electrical Safety Awareness

3 h 54 min · 4 parts · 16 chapters · 4 quizzes + final exam

A mechanic is not an electrician and is in front of energized equipment constantly — Table S-4 of 1910.332 lists "Mechanics and repairers" among the occupations facing a higher than normal risk of electrical accident. This course covers how current injures, what separates a qualified person from an unqualified one under 1910.332(b)(3), what each is permitted to do, and the work practices of 1910.333 through 1910.335. Take it after course 2, because the electrical lockout rule of 1910.333(b) only makes sense once you know the general one it differs from.

How current injures, and why 50 volts is the threshold the standards keep returning to
Qualified versus unqualified: the three skills of 1910.332(b)(3) and what they permit
Deenergizing first, and the narrow notes on when energized work is justified
Cord sets, test instruments, insulated tools, shields and the alerting techniques of 1910.335(b)
  1. Part 1 — How electricity injures4 chapters
  2. Part 2 — Qualified and unqualified: who may do what4 chapters
  3. Part 3 — The four ways a jobsite gets you4 chapters
  4. Part 4 — Deenergized work, and the exceptions4 chapters
Open “Electrical Safety Awareness”

Then, depending on the work you end up doing

These are not part of the core path. Take them when the work in front of you calls for them.

4 h 18 min
Hazardous Locations (HazLoc) Basics
Refineries, chemical plants, paint and spray finishing areas, fuel handling facilities, grain elevators and woodworking shops have areas where ordinary electrical equipment is an ignition source, and a mechanic who works in one needs to read a classification rather than discover it. Take this course if any part of your plant is a Class I, II or III location — it explains why an area gets classified, what the Class and the Division mean, how to read what is stamped on a piece of equipment, and the field conditions that quietly cancel the protection. Skip it if nothing you touch is classified.

Alongside the courses

Check yourself: free practice tests

Same standards, questions only. Every explanation cites the paragraph it comes from.

Practice Tests
Lockout/Tagout Practice Test
Take it after course 2 and see whether the stored energy and group lockout questions still trip you up.
Practice Tests
Machine Guarding Practice Test
Twenty-five questions across Subpart O, each explanation cited to its paragraph. The best cold check on Part 3 of course 1.
Practice Tests
Electrical Safety Practice Test
The Subpart S work practices, after course 3 — including the ones a mechanic meets and an electrician takes for granted.
Practice Tests
OSHA 10 General Industry Practice Test
A wider sweep of part 1910 for anyone reviewing before an Outreach class or a new plant walkthrough.

Bring it to the crew: printable toolbox talks

Five-minute talks on one page, ready to print for a tailgate meeting.

Toolbox Talks
Lockout/Tagout Basics
One printable page for a crew briefing before an outage — the short version of the six steps.
Toolbox Talks
Machine Guarding
Five minutes on why the guard is off and who puts it back. The talk to give the week your department fabricates a cover.
Toolbox Talks
Arc Flash Awareness
What an arc flash is and what it is not, for the mechanic who opens panels and is not the person who calculates incident energy.
Toolbox Talks
Hot Work Fire Watch
The watch, the half hour and the four conditions that trigger it, sized for a tailgate meeting.

Do the math on the job

The numbers these courses talk about, worked out in your browser. Nothing you type leaves it.

Calculators
Hydraulic Cylinder Force Calculator
Force from bore and pressure, and the rod-side annular area — the arithmetic behind knowing what a cylinder is still holding.

The paperwork, filled in

Blank templates your employer still has to review and adapt.

Permits & Forms
Lockout/Tagout Procedure Generator (Machine-Specific)
Build a machine-specific energy control procedure with the four elements 1910.147(c)(4)(ii) requires — including the verification step most templates leave blank.
Permits & Forms
Hot Work Permit Generator
The 35-foot walk, the prohibitions and the half-hour fire watch of 1910.252(a), as a permit you can fill in before you strike an arc.
Permits & Forms
Energized Electrical Work Permit
For the rare job that genuinely cannot be deenergized, the document that records the demonstration 1910.333(a)(1) requires.
Permits & Forms
JHA / JSA Builder (Job Hazard Analysis)
A job hazard analysis for the task in front of you — the exercise that turns the pre-job walk of Part 1 into something written down.
Permits & Forms
PPE Hazard Assessment Form (1910.132)
The written certification of hazard assessment that 1910.132(d)(2) requires, task by task rather than once per plant.

Short reads that clear up the usual confusions

Blog
Why Generic Lockout/Tagout Procedures Fail an Inspection
Why a binder of templates fails an inspection, and which five blanks in the Appendix A model actually carry the content.
Blog
Competent Person vs Qualified Person Under OSHA
The word that means one thing in construction and another in a plant, sorted out with the paragraphs that define each.

Who this path is for: Maintenance technicians and millwrights, industrial and plant mechanics, apprentices moving into maintenance from production, reliability and PM planners, maintenance supervisors, plant electricians who also turn wrenches, and contractors who service other companies' machines.

Frequently asked questions

No, and no online course can. 1910.147(c)(7)(i)(A) makes your employer train you in the hazardous energy sources in your workplace, the type and magnitude of energy available, and the means of isolation for the machines you work on — all of which are machine-specific — and (c)(8) reserves lockout to the authorized employees doing the work. 'Qualified person' is defined by the three skills in 1910.332(b)(3), and Note 1 to that paragraph makes the training itself the definition. What this path does is make sure that the training your employer owes you lands on something.

The order shown. Course 1 gives you the trade and the vocabulary, course 2 goes deep on the standard that dominates the work, and course 3 handles the electricity that keeps arriving whether or not you are an electrician — and it reads better once you know the general lockout rule that 1910.333(b) differs from. The classified-locations course is fourth and optional: take it only if part of your plant is a Class I, II or III location.

About 12 hours 40 minutes across the three core courses — reading plus the part quizzes and three final exams. Progress is stored in your own browser, so you can stop anywhere and come back. The optional classified-locations course adds another 4 hours 20 minutes.

General industry — 29 CFR part 1910 — because that is what a plant, a mill, a warehouse or a facility falls under. That distinction matters more here than almost anywhere else: 1910.147(a)(1)(ii)(A) excludes construction and agriculture from the hazardous energy standard entirely, and construction gets the much shorter 1926.417 and 1926.702(j) instead. Where the difference matters, the courses name both paragraphs.

It is not a maintenance skills curriculum: there is nothing here about bearing fits, alignment, vibration analysis, hydraulics design or welding procedure. It also does not cover rigging in depth — the Rigging and Lifting Fundamentals course on this site does that, and a mechanic who lifts loads should take it — nor confined space entry as a discipline, which is the Confined Space Awareness course, nor respiratory protection, which is its own course. And no consensus standard is reproduced anywhere: NFPA 70E for arc flash, ASME B30 for rigging and ANSI B11 for machine tools are named for what they are, and the values in them come from your equipment's own documents.

No prerequisite, no account, no email and no cost. If you have ever taken a guard off a machine, course 1 assumes exactly the right amount.

Sources & references

Content checked against these sources — last reviewed September 2, 2026.

Not OSHA-authorized training. SteelToeTools is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by OSHA or the U.S. Department of Labor. This free educational content does not satisfy any OSHA or other regulatory training requirement, and no card, certificate, or credential is issued. Only OSHA-authorized trainers can deliver OSHA Outreach Training (10-Hour and 30-Hour) and issue DOL cards. Always follow your employer's training program and applicable federal, state, and local requirements.

By — Editorial team of SteelToeTools.com (published by LSEA SAS) Updated v1.0