[thwest]

I also travel with custom imaging equipment that sometimes has exposed PCBs. My recommendation is to carry it on, so that you can open it and explain it. Twice I have approached the gate well ahead of my flight, and offered to show TSA the equipment. Both times they took only a cursory glance at it.

I'm surprised they don't just mandate the spectrogram swab on every piece of electronics that comes through, consumer or custom.