Whatever happened to twister cups?

[oreck_xl]

Back in the late '90's/early 2000's I recall some canisters (I think it was Sharp and Kenmore) having twister cups on the side of the wand. They were also called "bag savers." Other than making the wand obviously more clunky to maneuver, it seemed like the ideal hybrid for someone who wanted bagless/bag technology. I have a Kenmore E4 upright with that same type of twister cup. Are any canisters still made like this?

 

[crazykirbydude]

Like many early 2000's bagless systems, those "bag savers" were highly inefficient, reducing the vacuum's airflow to next to nothing. They were mostly a sales gimmick. I could never see one actually working. I will attach a picture of one.

 

[huskyvacs]

What a dumb idea - collect the dirt in the hose so it doesn't collect in the bag? Well what is the bag for then? I can only imagine the smell that would reek from dirt stagnating in them in a humid house for months.

 

[eurekafansquid]

Eureka and Electrolux used this back in the day with their canisters, Here's a video of one.

 

[blackheart]

Performance loss!

Other than one example shown by Mikko these generally eat your airflow reducing cleaning performance. Here's one I tested with my Henry 200-11 as we can see there was a huge performance drop.
The other thing is while these will stop the coarser particles the fine ones will get through which would end up clogging the bag anyways, probably at a slower pace but still.

 

[gregvacs28]

It's essentially making your vacuum a bagless model..... even if it already is one.  


 


But like all bagless vacs, it's a bad idea because of the mess of cleaning up the dirt from the container.  Plus you've got this dirt container flopping around on the wand. 

 

[oreck_xl]

True, but with a bag collecting all the fine dust, I figure filtration would be better than a bagless vacuum. I figured that twister cup would get in the way when vacuuming, but I never realized how much it reduces suction.

 

[mike811]

Bag savers have huge differences in performance.
They all rob the airflow.
Electrolux bag saver is pretty good, but the smaller Chinese just kills the airflow.

 

[vaclab]

Devin & Mike

Thank you both for posting your tests. I was wondering how many posts would build up until previous tests would make an appearance.

Bill