In the help forums, I see a lot of people asking about supports. How close they should allow them to come to their main print structure, speeds, etc. I don’t have a standard answer for this question. I’m usually most concerned with cosmetics when I’m printing figurines for my boys. The underlying issue is that supports that are too close (or touching) the main print will cause surface imperfections. This isn’t something that I’m normally concerned with when I’m making some type of prototype of something as much as when I’m making figurines.

For figurines, I usually make sure that my machine is really dialed in. A temperature tower and a retraction tower don’t take a lot of filament or time. Making sure that I have a solid bed level and printing out a test print to make sure I have a good solid bed level are pretty quick too and save a lot of headaches later. Once I’ve done that, I usually work with around 0.5mm clearance for X and Y axes and 0.25mm for Z. Your results may vary.