Triumph NTB-1200: a balancer sized by wheel weight, not just rim diameter
Every wheel balancer advertises the biggest rim it will take, because that is the flattering number. The figure that actually stops a shop is different: the NTB-1200 is rated for a 350 lb wheel-and-tyre assembly on a 40 mm shaft. That is the specification that separates a machine which can spin a loaded 19.5-inch commercial wheel from one that will happily accept the rim and then struggle with the mass hanging off it. If you are balancing anything heavier than passenger rubber, that pair of numbers is the one to compare across machines.
Around that it is a straightforward electronic balancer built for trucks, small buses and light-to-medium commercial vehicles: rims from 10 to 28 inches, tyres up to 51 inches in overall diameter, and rim widths up to 20 inches. It runs on ordinary 110V power with a 1/3 HP drive, and a measuring cycle takes about eight seconds.
Will It Fit?
A balancer is a floor-space and access question rather than a structural one, but it is still worth doing the measuring before the truck arrives.
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Crate footprint. The machine ships in a crate of 47 x 39 x 50 inches — that is 1,194 mm by 990 mm by 1,270 mm — weighing 720 lbs. Plan the route from the loading point to its final position, including any doorway it has to pass through.
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Working room. Leave space in front for a wheel to be rolled up and stood against the machine, and space to swing a 51-inch tyre onto the shaft without hitting a bench. A wheel that size is a two-person or one-person-and-a-dolly job.
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Power. 110V. No three-phase supply and no special installation.
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Handling. This is your responsibility to plan, not ours to guess: 350 lbs of wheel does not lift itself onto a shaft. Most shops running wheels at the top of this range use a wheel lift or a second technician as a matter of routine.
The wheel sizes this is really for
The clamping and diameter range covers the sizes that matter on light and medium commercial work — 16.5 inch, 19.5 inch and 21.5 inch wheels among them — which is a different population from passenger fitments. A 19.5-inch wheel on a box truck or a heavier pickup is a common enough job to be worth owning a machine for and heavy enough that a car balancer is the wrong tool. Rim widths run up to 20 inches, so dually and wide commercial fitments are inside the range rather than at its edge.
Static and dynamic modes, and why you use both
The machine offers both static and dynamic balancing. Dynamic balancing corrects for imbalance across the width of the wheel, placing weights on both planes, and it is what you want on almost any modern fitment. Static balancing corrects a single plane and remains the right answer on narrow wheels and on some older or specialised rims where an inner weight cannot be placed. Having both means the machine covers the odd job rather than forcing a compromise on it, and a shop that services a mixed fleet meets those odd jobs regularly.
The display reads in standard or metric units, which sounds trivial until you are working from a manufacturer's figure quoted in grams while the machine is set to ounces.
Perfect For
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Fleet and municipal shops running vans, box trucks and light commercial vehicles in-house.
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Tyre shops adding commercial work to an existing passenger-car business.
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Truck and trailer specialists where the mass of the assembly, not the rim size, is the limiting factor.
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Rural and agricultural service businesses handling a wide spread of wheel sizes on one machine.
What's in the Box
The machine ships as a complete balancer with its shaft and standard mounting hardware. Cone sets, adaptors and any commercial-specific mounting kit vary by order, so ask us to confirm exactly what is included against your own wheel fitments before you buy rather than assuming from the photographs — that is the single most common source of a disappointed first day with a balancer.
Specifications
Wheel capacity
| Rim diameter |
10 to 28 inches (up to 711 mm) |
| Maximum tyre diameter |
51 inches (1,295 mm) |
| Rim width |
up to 20 inches (508 mm) |
| Maximum wheel weight |
350 lbs |
| Shaft size |
40 mm |
Operation and power
| Cycle time |
about 8 seconds |
| Motor |
1/3 HP |
| Voltage |
110V |
| Display |
standard or metric |
Shipping
| Crate size |
47 x 39 x 50 inches (1,194 x 990 x 1,270 mm) |
| Shipping weight |
720 lbs |
One point to confirm before you order. Published figures differ on automatic data entry: the marketing copy that has run on this listing describes wheel diameter and offset being measured automatically with only the width entered by hand, while the specification table on the same page records automatic data entry as not fitted. Both are shown here. If automatic data entry is part of why you are buying, ask us and we will confirm it against the current spec sheet before you order.
Certification, stated plainly
We are not going to decorate this page with a compliance badge the product data does not support. The material we hold on this balancer does not include an independent North American lift-safety listing from a third-party testing body, and we are not going to imply one with vague language about being "tested" or "approved" — those words mean whatever the writer wants them to mean.
Here is why it matters rather than why it sounds bad. Some commercial insurance policies, some fleet and municipal maintenance contracts, and some local building or fire code officials specifically require that shop lifting equipment carry an independent safety listing. Most home garages and a great many independent shops are under no such requirement at all. Only you know which side of that line you are on, so check it in writing with your insurer or your inspector before you buy — for this unit or for any other one you are comparing it against. Ask us what documentation ships in the crate and we will tell you exactly what is in there.
Shipping and delivery
This ships as freight, not as a parcel. It travels on an LTL truck to addresses in the lower 48 states, and the delivery charge you see at checkout is a live carrier quote worked out for your own ZIP code rather than a figure typed into this page, so nothing here goes stale on you.
Two practical points decide whether the delivery day is uneventful. The first is unloading: somebody at the receiving end has to get the crate off the back of the truck. A forklift, a tractor with forks, or a telehandler will do it. If none of that is available to you, choose warehouse pickup instead and collect the crate on a trailer, because the freight terminal has the equipment to load you. The second is the address type. A delivery to a home is handled differently from a delivery to a commercial address and carries a residential fee, so tell us which one it is when you order rather than sorting it out on the doorstep.
Inspect the shipment before you sign for it. Walk the crate, look for punctures, crushed corners and shifted banding, and write what you find on the bill of lading while the driver is still there. A clean signature is the carrier's evidence that everything arrived intact, and it is very hard to argue with afterwards. Photographs taken at the tailgate are worth far more than photographs taken in the garage an hour later.
Warranty and claims
Triumph publishes its warranty terms in its own documentation rather than in this listing, and we would rather send you the current document than paraphrase a term that may since have changed. Ask us for it before you order and we will give you the version that applies to this model and to the way you intend to use it, since commercial and residential use are not always covered identically.
One rule matters more than the wording of the terms. If something fails, do not take it apart. Disassembling a component before the manufacturer has had the chance to inspect it is the most common reason a legitimate claim gets refused, because once it is in pieces nobody can establish what actually happened. Stop using the equipment, photograph the failure where it sits, and call us first.
