Liz, the little portable collectors are better than nothing, but you will soon tire of emptying the bags, especially if you use it on a jointer or a planer.

My advice with DC is always to get the biggest fan you can afford, everything else can be upgraded later. For not much more $, you can get a 2HP Grizzly that would be capable of a small central system down the road.

Browse the WOOD forum, theres a lot of information out there.

: Does anyone have any experience with portable (or semi permanent) dust
: collection systems for a small house basement workshop? It would be used
: on one machine at a time. We're looking at a two dust bag system (2
: micron) with a 1 hp motor. We don't want to build in a major shop system
: but need to reduce the amount of dust we're producing on my boatbuilding
: and my spouse's metal working.