Today I was doing some general maintenance and work on my truck, which included finally drilling the hole for the switch that operated my roof light rack. Well the switch has a third prong on it for a ground to power an led inside when the switch is in the on position. The switch led never worked before because I didn't have the ground hooked up to it. Well I went to hook the ground up and the led switch light was flickering then going solid, then back to flickering. The roof light racks were solidly on, so that ruled it down to the ground wire.
I though it would be a simple fix to just clean the ground point (metal bolt that connects clearly to the aluminum dash frame). So I undid the bolt and went to sand it all down. I flipped the switch with the ground disconnected from the frame, but still pluged into the switch, basically a dead wire just hanging in the air. The light still flickered. I thought that was really strange. As soon as I disconnect the wire from the switch, the flickering goes away and there is nothing. The wire was not connected to anything at the other end, so that is why it was stumping me.
This only thing I can imagine is the wire is acting like an antenna? Or did air just suddenly become the new universal ground? (jokingly of course)
Here are a few pictures to help describe what I mean.
The pictures are not mine, just used it to help describe my situation.
^ Here is the switch not connected to the ground wire or ground. No switch led. (expected)
^ Here is the switch connected to the ground wire and ground. Switch flickers and then goes solid, then flickers again. Not expected, most likely a bad ground.
^ Here is the switch connected to the ground wire but not the ground. Switch flickers, no solid light at all. Defiantly not expected, Unknown solution.