Abstract
The reaction of a pulsed 18O beam on a 164Dy target was studied in the first experiment with the NuBall array at the IPN Orsay, France. Excited state half-lives were measured using the fast timing method with 20 LaBr3(Ce) detectors. The timing characteristics of the fully digital acquisition system is briefly discussed. A value for the previously unknown half-life of the first excited 4+ state in 178W is presented.