Here's what Joe told me about changing sieve. "Molecular Sieve should be changed every 15 hours of use in the hotter, more humid months, and every 25 hours of use in colder, drier months. If you are only averaging 15-25 hours of use yearly, you can change it about every 20 hours of use."
This is all silly. Every time you fire the gun, the reg. is "impacted" by a pulse of air. Should we stop shooting them to prevent this catastrophic damage?
Eh? AA has been using this basic design for 30+ years. With slight improvements here and there over that time. I don't see them ever implementing any of those features in this line and still calling it a S5 or S whatever might be next. Recently rebranding and rebadgeing lower end Asia made...
The two hole thing is to replace the old way AA designed the fail safe feature. Put too much air in the old tubes and the tube's end would flare out an release the pressure. You had to replace the tube after that... The new system just kills an oring. There is a passage that allows cylinder...
When I installed DIY regs in my AA rifles I used a hone to deburr the vent hole. Like this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0009OR8WU?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
There shouldn't be large, collectable, quantities of water ejected from the filter. Think splattering misty spray. If the tube stays attached, any water is going to get shot upwards by the sides of the tin. A rag is probably all you will need.
Probably not exploded. But it'll pop off for sure. I tried a bit of clear tubing on the drain of the gold oil/water separator on my Yong Heng. Obtained a shockingly high velocity...!