Bag vs canister vs cyclone dust collector for a small shop

• The shop is a hobby and it runs a few hours a month. The bag collector is the lowest cost of entry and the filter will not clog quickly at that duty.
• You have a single 120V outlet and no plan for a dedicated circuit. A 1 HP machine is gentler on the circuit than a 1-1/2 HP unit, but read the amp rating on the listing and check it with the workshop amps calculator.
• You move the collector to the machine. A portable on casters rolls to the table saw, rolls to the planer and rolls back against the wall when the car comes in.
• You mostly cut coarse chips. A planer and a jointer make big chips that a bag handles well. Fine sanding dust is what blinds it.

• You sand, rout or cut sheet goods. Fine dust is what kills a bag. In a cyclone the coarse stuff drops into the drum and the canister handles only the fine fraction.
• A car shares the bay. Fine dust that escapes a clogged bag settles on paint. The G0860 lists a 1 micron canister, so less escapes.
• You run a planer. A planer makes a mound of chips fast. A 20 gallon drum is emptied by a quick-release latch, not by wrestling a bag.
• You want airflow to hold up. A cyclone with a clean canister keeps the same airflow on day 100 as on day 1, within the limits of the duct.

All three pull air through a duct with a fan, called an impeller. What happens next is the difference.

Bag collectors run chips and dust through the impeller and blow the air through a fabric bag. The airflow is good when the bag is new. Fine dust fills the pores of the fabric, and airflow drops. Bags are rated by the particle size they pass; a 1 micron bag, as in the POWERTEC listing, catches fine dust but loads faster than a 5 or 30 micron bag. Our catalog holds the POWERTEC portable, the POWERTEC wall-mount and the WEN 12 gallon, and the Grizzly G1028Z2 is a bag-style portable with a 1300 CFM bag rating, a 6 in inlet Y with two 4 in openings and a 42.6 gallon bag on its listing.

Canister collectors replace the bag with a pleated filter, which has far more surface area and cleans with a crank or a paddle. The Grizzly G0785 is a 1 HP wall-mount with a canister filter and the G0548ZP is a 2 HP canister collector with an aluminum impeller. We do not have more figures on those two than their names; the listings give the CFM and the amps. A canister is still a single-stage design: chips pass through the impeller, so the impeller takes the wear.

Cyclone collectors add a first stage. Air enters a cone and spins, and the heavy chips fall into a drum. Only the fine fraction reaches the impeller and the filter. That is the G0860, a two-stage design. The result is a filter that stays cleaner, a drum that does the work a bag did, and a collector that holds its airflow.

Cyclone, by a clear margin, and the reason is mechanical rather than a matter of brand. A bag or a canister is both the filter and the container. A cyclone separates those jobs. The coarse material is out of the airstream before it gets to the filter, and what remains is the dust that matters for health and for paint.

Nothing in this table replaces a respirator. Even a 1 micron filter lets some of the finest dust through, and the dust you breathe is the dust that escapes at the machine. Wear a fitted respirator such as the 3M half facepiece kit or the GVS Elipse P100, and run a hanging filter. The G0738 hanging filter lists 260, 362 and 409 CFM with a 5 micron outer and a 1 micron inner filter; the air filtration calculator sizes one for your bay.

If you work in softwood and cut mostly boards, with a short duct and a collector that you wheel up to the machine, a bag is not a mistake. If you sand or build cabinets from sheet goods, the bag is a regret.

The G0860 is 27-1/2 x 44 in and 70 in tall on its listing. Our layout engine places it in a 12 x 22 ft bay beside a parked sedan and in every larger bay; in the 12 x 20 ft bay it fits only when the car is out. The G0860 sheet shows all six bays.

A cyclone is taller than a bag portable. At 70 in it clears a standard 8 ft garage ceiling, but a door track or an opener rail may sit lower than the ceiling. A wall-mount canister such as the G0785 solves the floor space problem entirely by hanging on a wall stud. Read the listing for its dimensions and plan the wall: a collector vibrates, and a 2x4 stud into a block wall is not the same as a stud in a framed wall.

Weight matters when the unit is portable. The G0860 ships at 278 lb on its listing and the G1028Z2 at 118 lb. Neither is a unit you lift into place alone, and a 118 lb portable on casters is easier to relocate than a 278 lb cyclone.

The G0860 is listed at 15 A at 120V. Taking 125 percent for a continuous load gives 18.8 A, so a dedicated 20 A circuit with 12 AWG copper (NEC Table 310.16, 60 C column). The G1028Z2 lists 12 A at 120V, or 6 A at 240V. A licensed electrician should confirm any circuit.

In a garage the practical question is whether the collector shares a circuit with a saw. It should not. A collector and a saw both draw heavy starting current, and the first time you run both you will trip the breaker. The 240V route, a 6 A draw on the G1028Z2 at 240V, is a legitimate way to remove the problem, since the same motor draws half the current in the same wire. See the 240V explainer and the 1-1/2 HP circuit sheet.

Airflow figures need caution. A bag rating of 1300 CFM, as on the G1028Z2 listing, is free air through the bag, not air at the hood of a machine through a duct. The G0860 lists 868 CFM at 1.8 in of static pressure, which is the more useful kind of figure because it includes the resistance of a duct system. A machine such as a table saw asks for 350 CFM at the hood and a planer 400; a 6 in main carries 785 CFM at 4,000 fpm.

The G0860 lists 78 dB. Bag collectors vary, and the listing is the place to read each number. Because a bag collector runs the chips through the impeller, it also makes a harsher noise when a screw or a knot goes through. Hearing protection is not optional; the Decibel Defense muffs are a 37 dB NRR option.

Maintenance is where the cost of ownership shows. A bag is emptied or replaced; a canister is cleaned with a paddle and replaced eventually; a cyclone drum is emptied and its canister is cleaned less often. If you hate maintenance, the cyclone is the answer. If you hate spending, the bag is the answer, and you accept the chore.

This ranking comes from the published specifications and owner reviews, not from our own testing. For a garage shop with a car in it: cyclone first, canister second, bag third. For a garage shop that is a hobby and a short list of machines on a 120V circuit: bag collector, until the first time you sand a cabinet. The upgrade path from a bag to a cyclone is a sale of the first and a purchase of the second, so the cost of choosing the bag is the resale loss. The dust collector roundup lays out three tiers.

Cyclone if you sand, rout or park a car beside the shop; bag if you cut boards for a few hours a month on a tight budget. The G0860 is the 120V cyclone that fits a one-car garage with a car in it (12 x 22 ft). A canister, such as the wall-mount G0785, is the choice when floor space is the constraint and you accept a single-stage design. For the 240V step up, see the G0860 against G0441 page.