A low-cost, two-wire, half-duplex high speed powered communications bus having a master/controller and one or more slave/sensor/interface units. The master/controller may have a current-limited power supply, and receive/transmit circuitry. Each slave/sensor/interface may have polarity protection and also have receive/transmit circuitry. The power supply may provide high/low voltage levels on the bus and over-current protection, and have one or more diodes for mis-wire protection. Each transmit circuit may have a tunable R-C network for limiting RF emissions. Each slave/sensor/interface may receive data and power over the two-wire bus.