False posts touting electricity generators without power source spread in Indonesia

  • This article is more than one year old.
  • Published on August 31, 2023 at 04:05
  • 3 min read
  • By AFP Indonesia
Experts say no device can power a light bulb without a power source, contrary to a claim shared in videos with millions of views across social media platforms in Indonesia. An engineer told AFP the device shown in the videos likely has a light bulb powered by an internal battery.

One video has been viewed more than a million times after it was shared on Facebook on July 31, 2023.

It shows a person assembling a device consisting of a coil, two spark plugs and a light bulb. The bulb lights up when a magnet is placed across the spark plugs.

"Without power you can light up a bulb. With a discovery like this you can save electricity cost in villages," reads the video text overlay.

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on August 30, 2023

The video gained traction when it was first posted in July 2022 after the Indonesian government increased the electricity price, garnering more than three million views on video-sharing app SnackVideo.

Other videos claiming to show electricity generators using the same components have long appeared on social media, for example on YouTube in 2021 and 2020 and on Facebook in 2019.

But experts who analysed the device shown in the clips said the claim is false.

"In order for the bulb to light up for a sufficient amount of time, an electrical energy source or storage component such as a battery or accumulator is required," Kevin Marojahan Banjar Nahor, an electrical engineering lecturer at Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), told AFP on August 21, 2023 (archived links here and here).

"Spark plugs, coils, and metal plates are not components that can serve as a source of electrical energy without external influence," he said.

The ITB lecturer also explained that the bulb in the video might be an emergency one that has an internal battery source.

He added the magnet in the video may serve as a switch, turning the light on and off by bridging or breaking the connection between the two spark plugs, which are linked to the bulb's internal battery.

He sent AFP screenshots from one of the false videos, showing that the bulb is off when the internal battery that runs through the sparks plugs is disconnected and the bulb is on when the battery is connected through the magnet.

Below are Kevin's screenshots from the false video, showing when the bulb is off (left) and when it is on (right), with blue lines added by the lecturer:

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The bulb is off when electricity from the internal battery that runs through the sparks plugs is disconnected (left) and the bulb is on when the battery is connected through the magnet (right)

Cuk Supriyadi Ali Nandar, an expert with Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), also refuted the claim that the bulb has been lit without a power source (archived links here and here).

"It appears that the bulb used is an emergency bulb that has an internal battery that powers the bulb," he said on August 21, 2023.

"In an emergency bulb, if its two terminals are connected, the bulb will light up. The magnet triggers the connection."

An emergency bulb can be switched on by connecting its two terminals, including by using human fingers, as explained in this YouTube video (archived link).

People who have attempted to recreate the circuit and test it themselves, as in posts here in English and here in Indonesian, found it does not work (archived links here and here).

Meanwhile, this video demonstrates another trick that was possibly used in the video: a bulb can be illuminated using a concealed cable beneath the bulb's base (archived link).

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