I have a pack of IB3800's that were doing well until they got a bit hot one day. They look OK but when I charge them they will peak out at 9v or around there, each cell will show around 1.3-1.5v each but as soon as I put any load on they drop off in about 10-20 seconds.

I have tried cycling down to 0.9v/cell even 0.8v/cell, and charging back up at 0.5 amps and 1 amp for about 2 days and still find them not holding a charge.

A guy at my local hobby shop suggested I try zapping them. I asked him how to do this and he said to strike the pos and neg wires together.

Can anybody tell me if this is correct or is there any other suggestions to bring this pack back to life? It wasn't a cheap pack so I don't want to give up on them just yet.

Ok what is a bit hot?? Is the shrink wrap melted on the cells??
If over charged you may have stuffed them up to far to recover them.

I got 2 sets of interlect packs of my mate that he said were sad. I discharged them to 4.8 v than charged them a few times at 3 amps and seem to be good. I use them in my starter box now.

Your local hobby shop is wrong about zapping. That is a proccess the matchers do to get more voltage out of them.( they zap each cell at a very high rate of amps to get a higher voltage) The proccess he told you is known as Dead Shorting which brings the cells down to Zero volts. Must be flat first. If you have a battery tray with that feature and you have tried every other option and you have nithing more to loose i would give it a go.

Good Luck.

Not over charged, left attached to ESC overnight, by mistake New Years Eve, which is why you shouldn't drink and drive! Got a bit hot but nothing more than a good solid charge would do, but probably for a lot longer.

discharge them, break the pack up, put them in a PWM charger (one you use to recharge alkalines safely) and cycle on that, do that a few times, then drop them individually onto a concrete floor from 6 feet a couple of times (to break up the crystals inside). i did this to some 10 year old+ ni-mh laptop cells and they came back to life enough to run a small 3w amplifier off for some time.

When you overdischarge the cells (most speed controls will do this) it hurts the cell and can cause it to false peak.

Try charging at a very low current (like 1 amp) for about a half hour to an hour. Restart the charger if it false peaks but maks sure the cells don't get hot to the touch. Let the pack set overnight to allow the chemical process in the cell to restart and stabilize. Then you should be able to charge the cell completely and it will take a charge.

The first cycle after you do this won't be very good but the pack should be fine after that.