Patent ID: 7376858

Claim:
A bus system for controlling a component of a printing machine, the bus system comprising: a plurality of slaves on a bidirectional ring topology data communications bus; a first master clock generator in a first one of the slaves for outputting a first master clock signal onto the bus; a second master clock generator in a second one of the slaves for outputting a second master clock signal onto the bus; wherein both clock generators send their clock signals simultaneously onto the bus to the connected slaves; the bus is connected from slave to slave in a ring topology, so that each slave is connected to the bus from two directions, each of which direction provides at least one of the two master clock signals; and each of the slaves has an independent selection device for selecting the first or second master clock signal as the synchronization clock to be used, based solely on the master clock signals received; whereby any one of the slaves, or any two immediately adjacent slaves on the bus, including either one of the master clock slaves, can be removed or can malfunction, without eliminating master clocking of the other slaves, because the bus remains continuous in one direction to each of the remaining slaves despite said removal or malfunction, so at least one of the master clock signals is available to each of the remaining slaves, and whereby the remaining slaves will self-resynchronize as needed if one master clock generator is lost.