Rigging industrial robot, IK bone at end of sliding arm

Support Animation and Rigging
1


I’m fairly new to rigging but this is a tough one. I’m modeling the original Unimate industrial robot which was a polar robot. The arm slides in and out like shown. I need the IK bone tied to the gripper for the rigging. I’ve modeled pistons with damped tracking but it won’t let me attach the IK bone to the bone for the arm because it has a damped track constraint applied to it.
Oh, the main body of the robot can rotate and pivot up and down at the round base, hence the reason for the IK rigging.
Am I missing anything or does anybody have a suggestion as to how I can do this?
TIA,
Ian

2

The solution was to use a stretchy bone in the middle between the top of the bone acting as the post and the end of the extendable arm. Worked like a charm!