Portable articulated arm coordinate measuring machine with multi-bus arm technology

A portable articulated arm coordinate measurement machine (AACMM), comprising:

• a manually positionable articulated arm portion having opposed first and second ends, the arm portion including a plurality of connected arm segments, each of the arm segments including at least one position transducer for producing a position signal;
• a measurement device coupled to the first end;
• an electronic circuit configured to receive the position signal from the at least one position transducer and to provide data corresponding to a position of the measurement device;
• a probe end disposed between the measurement device and the first end;
• an accessory device removably coupled to the probe end;
• an encoder data bus coupled to the at least one transducer and the electronic circuit, the encoder data bus configured to send the position signal to the electronic circuit;
• and
• a first device data bus coupled to the accessory device and the electronic circuit, the first device data bus configured to operate simultaneously with and independently of the encoder data bus for sending accessory device data from the accessory device to the electronic circuit.