Quote Originally Posted by curious aardvark View Post
why would any streal print volume ?

Should be as simple as just dropping the extruder on top.

Can you post pics of the hotend and carriage and the extruder.

Pictures from promotional literature never show the stuff you want to see in any detail :-)
The hotend is hard up against a mounting plate. Most direct mount extruders need a bit more space, so you lose a bit of space, typically in the Y-direction. Mine loses around 12mm in the Y-direction. You can recover this by mounting the bed offset.