I travel with a lot (I mean an entire backpack full) of photographic and underwater housing gear, which also means many batteries, charger cords, fiberoptics and electronic cabling and various metal fittings. Much of it looks kind of mysterious and sneaky to the layman, and even the stuff that doesn't (camera lenses) are still big heavy volumes that could 'hide' a lot if someone was using them as a cover shape. I just got into the habit, when passing my backpack up onto the belt, of telling them "this is photo gear, I'm sure you'll want to inspect it, I'll happily discuss it all with you once I pass thru the scanner". And then I do. Expect to have them look through every lens, paw thru every one of my 24-36 AA batteries to make sure they all feel the same in the hand, turn on the camera, unzip every filter pocket...you name it. Its kind of nervewracking for me considering the investment involved, but at least they wear gloves so they're not getting fingerprints on my optics. ;-)
If you have any reason to think what you are carrying might look suspicious, no matter how innocuous it really is, getting all in a wad over it just makes matters worse and triggers behavioral alarms. Better to acknowledge to them 'hey, I know this might make you go "hmmm", I can explain', and be upfront.
And of course, plan extra time just in case you get the rare unreasonable one in the bunch. Despite all the stories, they're just trying to do their jobs and don't like being buttheads about it, for the most part. 'Course you can always catch them on that bad day, or be unwittingly traveling at the same time as they get some sort of specific alert of decree from above.