[mathking]

Our Triple Play robot had a similar design problem. After much debate and trying a lot of different ideas, we ended up using a retractable lanyard mounted to the arm just behind where the extension began. We had a couple loops of wire & tubing attached to it together. The loops allowed us to get 3' of extension from an 18" lanyard. It worked very well for us. I could only find a couple of pictures of it, but hopefully they give you an idea of what we did.