@ Silent Squirrel.
Those filter cartridges are repackable. You can fill them with whatever media your heart desires. Molecular sieve is the prefered filler for a few reasons that you can look up. It works better the higher the pressure. You should pack it as tight as possible but the description of water draining through gravel is highly dubious. Do you intend to only fill your gun directly or use a large bottle? I ask this because if your answer is the former, you will need to fill that filter every time you fill your gun which means you will be wasting approximately half of all the air you compress. That means your compressor will only last half as long. The filter that comes with your Y.H does a pretty good job if you only want to fill your gun but there are others on the market that you can pack yourself that may be more suitable. Take this advice with a grain of salt as all the other comments on here, some are only partly right, opinion or downright hearsay.
The Coltri filters do come in several combinations including 100% molecular sieve. I don't know about this filter.
I'm setting up to repack my filters as it is about six times cheaper, even using top grade material.
I suspect that the filter packing and effectiveness is related to the compressor pumping rate. The 240V compressors pump at three times the rate of the 120V units, so the dwell time in the filter is tripled, a
nd the filter you are looking at is fairly large as well. A spring loaded situation is ideal but a good snug pack should do fairly well.
In my case there is a spring that ejects the filter cartridge from the Coltri housing, so I 3D printed a floating cartridge top (with O ring seals) that transfers external spring pressure through into the internal molecular sieve stack, so there will be spring pressure if I fill it to the right level.
Also changing the sieve more often will maintain a higher active surface area which improves adsorption. The early part of the filter saturates first and effectively shortens the stack. Don't wait till the filter is exhausted, if you are reloading the sieve material there is a pretty small cost associated with a recharge. The 50 hours mentioned is based on a set of assumptions regarding temperature and pressure and the amount of sieve material. Best to pump only when it is cool and to keep the filter at high pressure which forces the moisture separator to get most of the water out and minimize what's left as vapor. For most of us changing the sieve material every six months will avoid saturating the filter. Make sure to cap it off when not using it.
In my case I'm keeping track of the fills (temperature, start and ending pressure, tank volume) and calculating the moisture that the filter has been exposed to as well as having a detection strip in the cartridge, so I should have some warning before the indicator goes.
