I am bungy’ing into the USA soon and wondering as to the best way to travel with parts and projects. Even the finest of Gadgeteer projects is going to look sketchy on an X-Ray. Anybody have lessons learned to share (or horror stories)? Is it better to put things (not batteries of course) into checked baggage and hope the x-ray tech’s don’t require an explanation from you, or to travel with them in your cabin baggage? I am currently tending toward cabin baggage as my choice, but I want to lean on the wisdom of the masses here.
I have never had any troubles going through x-ray.
I have recently traveled to US, carrying some serious repair PCBs and measurement tools both in hand and checked luggage - no problems…
Frankly, if Gary can get through security with wires poking out of his bag, I should be fine.
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@ mcalsyn - it surprises me sometimes with what they let me bring through the x-ray.
@ mcalsyn - Haven’t traveled internationally with my gear, but recently flew from DC to Chicago with a bunch of gear in my carry-on. No trouble whatsoever.
At 6’8" & 250lbs I don’t see how you get through… 
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I travel to CA every month with Gadgeteer in my carry on. (Hydra, T43, SD, metal standoffs galore, etc). I’ve only once had them put my bag aside, they opened up had a look and sent me on my way. Shouldn’t have any issues.
Just got back from Russia. Had some boards with me and in the checked in luggage as well. No problems or even questions about it.
Welcome back! You’ve been missed!
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@ devhammer - Thank you! I missed you guys too! ;D
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I was just wondering this morning what happened to you. KGB finally caught up to you?
@ ianlee74 - A long overdue visit to see family and friends.
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@ Architect - look who is back in town 
welcome back.
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I’ve flown with a lot of prototype hardware and tons of modules/pcboards/sensors/wires/rfidtag/ crammed into little boxes in my bags
The only time I ever had any problem was the one time, deep within a mass of jumbled electronics, I had left my tiny Philips screwdriver.
That caused them to pull me aside, open the box, and take the screwdriver out and toss it.
Oh, and I got pulled out once when I was about 11 or 12, and I had a hobby of collecting those discarded aluminum pull-top can tabs (back before they were integrated into the soda can like they are now, and you instead would toss them after opening the can) because I was making an enormous linked chain of them for some project… I had thousands of them in a paper bag that also had several old style hand held video games (this was late 70’s)… It looked like I was trying to hide electronics in a mass of tiny metal fragments, so they wanted to search it.
Ahh, it bugs me that Firefox is flagging “aluminum” as misspelled just because I am in a commonwealth country. I’m never going to spell it “aluminium” so it might as well just give up!
@ mtylerjr - I almost made the screwdriver mistake on my recent trip…considered tossing my ESD-safe screwdriver kit in the bag, and then thought better of it since I was only doing carry-on, and figured they’d end up confiscated for sure.
Really stupid that we have to worry about this stuff at all. Pure security theater.
I had to take a screwdriver on my last trip because I was having a new HTPC shipped to my hotel (as a Canadian who travels regularly to the US I am constantly bringing back stuff) and I didn’t want to wait to get it home to install the RAM and SSD and OS. Since I knew the risks I took the cheapest one I could find.
It made it from Calgary to Vancouver, from Vancouver to Seattle, from Seattle to Vancouver, but they took it on the security check before I could board Vancouver to Calgary.
Gotta love consistency, but at least I had it for when I needed it.
BTW the new ASRock BeeBox N3000 is a really nice little HTPC.
@ Gus - Thanks!
I have travelled from Germany to USA and back with a lot of Gadgeteer/NETMF equipment in my normal luggage, without any issues. Part of it was wildly wired on a G120HDR.
Not even the hotel staff got suspicious with all the electronics lying around in my room.
Aah the hotel, that reminds me.
On a recent trip to NY I ordered from GHI, SparkFun, and Amazon, assembling everything I needed for a sensor project. I got a flight delay and didn’t get to the hotel till the next day, collected my packages at the front desk, and went to the lobby washroom to assemble all the packages into a smaller bundle, but first I had to make sure everything was there.
I had two XBees, a couple GHI boards, a bunch of breadboard jumpers, some solar cells, etc. all laid out on the counter in the washroom when a staffer walk in, goes right past it into a stall, doesn’t even bat an eye. I pooled it all into one of the boxes and left, and that big mass of electronics didn’t make the x-ray tech blink when I went through security.