dust collector bag or cannister?

[mike wise]

Hello all,
I need your input. I am looking at dust collectors and have looked at both bag types and cannisters. Which do you prefer? I am leaning to the cannister. I have a TS, jointer, planer and router tables that I want to attach to. space is tight, and I will only be using one at a time. I would most likely try to have all connect and use blast gates. Thanks in advance for your input.

Mike Wise

[Hoa Dinh]

First off, install a trash can separator or the like. Not only it protects the DC impeller from things not intended for the DC (nails, screws, remote controls, cats, ...), it also makes the task of emptying the DC lower bags less frequent.

There are people who switch from bag to canister and then switch bag. The report that the canister is easy to be clogged up with fine dust.

I switched from bag to canister about a year ago, and still prefer the canister. The DC seems to have more efficient, and emptying the plastic lower bag is less messy than emptying a cloth lower bag.

My canister (JDS) has a handle for the cleaning paddles. I give the handle a few turns whenever I pass by the DC. My DC (Grizzly G1029) is designed for bag. The canister is much heavier than the bag so the support is not very solid. Fortunately, the JDS canister comes with a steel support bracket which helps a lot.

[Ted Miller]

Mike, This is an area we can talk about for days, it depends on how much use you need, how far you are venting, what you are collecting from, so many things to go into, if you do one thing try to vent your collection outside, any bag collection system will not do a sufficient job at removing the invisable particles which cause the most damage to our lungs. Most bags filters say they collect up to 1 micron, but if you really check into the square footage of these bags they do not do what most guys think, and after just using a jointer for 10-15 minutes and that filter will be clogged and there goes your some what clean air. I opt for a cyclonic system and I still vent it to the outside, this is the safest way to move the smaller dust particles out of harms way...

[Howard Rosenberg]

Hi Mike -

- what size of DC are you thinking of buying

- what brand
- FWIW - I'm not snobby about brands - it's just that HP/CFM ratings as reported by the manufacturers can be more than a little "inventive"

- what size hose are you planning on using
- a 4" hose will starve the DC for CFMs
- go to a 6" hose and a separator as suggested in an earlier reply and you'll scour the separator clean - DAMHIKT
- definitely not a good idea
- you don't want everything in the bag/canister filter

- blast gates on a 1 1/2HP to 2HP DC imply longish runs - not a great idea - you'll simply end up with a user-friendly chip collector

- three years ago I created my own canister filter setup using a FARR filter sitting on my DC's bag tree
- rather than blow to the narrow pleats inside the canister, I evacuated to the outside of the filter - it sat inside a GIANT fibre drum
- it worked fine for about three days then jammed up - solid
- I cleaned it with my shop-vac and compressed air every coupla days

- I lost so much time horsing around with this setup that I eventually went to an oversized filter bag from AFF
- works OK but I'd prefer a cyclone
- I just have budget/electrical constraints

HTH
Howard

P.S. - the reference point for every single question you could ever concieve re DC is Bill Pentz's website - he's pretty outspoken and isn't afraid of expressing his biases but all of the excellent info is free

[mike wise]

Thanks for the replies. I am thinking of the onieda @ about 2hp, 1200cfm. The run from the collector to the equipment will be very short (less than 20ft). I plan on using galvanized spiral pipe from the collector to within 5' of the tool. I will size the piping to maintain cfm and fpm at the best collection level. I also have entertained the idea of building my own system. I have three sons who are union sheet metal workers so building the cyclone would be a snap. I am just concerned about weather to use a cannister on the discharge side or a bag filter. I can not discharge outside, that is not an option. Thanks
Mike