Charging Samsung Chromebook from USB socket

[News]

We make occasional 500 mile car trips, and have a USB charger that plugs into the car cigarette lighter, which is great for charging phones. What I cannot find is a lead or adaptor to charge a Samsung Chromebook from the USB socket. The Chromebook has a tiny circular socket for charging, rather like earlier mobiles, but smaller.

Cannot find anything suitable via eBay, Amazon or Google, but am probably asking the wrong question. Any bright ideas, or is there a good reason why such a device would not work? I can find a charger that plugs into a cigarette lighter, but that really just duplicates the charger we already have.

I suspect the answer is that the voltage required by the Chromebook is higher than that supplied by USB?

[News]

In message , News writes

I've just answered my own question. The output from the mains charger is 12v, and USB provides 5v, which presumably explains why the Chromebook requires a dedicated car charger. Bugger.

[Andy Burns]

Yes USB is 5V, don't know about chromebooks specifically, but many laptops are 19V give or take a volt

More than likely, You'll have to settle for cigarette lighter->laptop charger instead of some cigarette lighter->USB->laptop arrangement, it would take ages to charge even if you could find one.

Eventually USB3.1 will provide sufficient power, it remains to be seen if laptops will come along that can be charged that way.

[Brian-Gaff]

Quite possibly have you not measured what comes out of the charger for the mains to see what it is and how much current charging and operating on that supply uses? Brian

[philipuk]

Just look for a car charger for your specific Chromebook. Something like th is?

Alternatively do what I did a long time ago and just get a small 100W or so inverter for running the multitude of chargers that seem to need plugging in. Just be sure it can't be powered when the engine isn't running or you'r e sure of a dead battery very quickly (they don't like being used for anyth ing other than a short burst of high current for starting the car).

Philip

[Roland Perry]

In message , at

03:02:23 on Thu, 9 Jul 2015, " [e-mail]" remarked:

I've got an inverter that plugs into the cigar lighter, and has a 13A socket on the end. 140W continuous. It was to enable me to charge a laptop on a hire boat that didn't have its own inverter but did have a cigar lighter. A bit like this:

[News]

In message , " [e-mail]" writes

Yes, for simplicity, I think that is the answer. I was just trying to avoid carrying two different chargers, but using the one I already have is not going to be practical.