While cruising at 30,000 feet, a flight attendant heard a loud pop from the coffee maker in the airplane’s galley. The plane was forced to land and was grounded pending an investigation. The problem was the cartridge heater in the coffeemaker. Some cartridge heaters, such as this one, are constructed with a heli-arc welded end disc where small pin holes can form and lead to failure. This can cause a minor inconvenience, or a catastrophic problem, as it was in this case. The challenge was to design and build a cartridge heater without any welds. - Chromalox worked directly with the customer to develop a cartridge heater utilizing deep drawn technology. The deep drawn tube cartridge heater has no welded end disc or welded seams.

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