Wrong when the only downside of that generator is that
it may well not control the voltage and frequency of what
it generates very accurately. The SMPS won't give a damn.


You don't know that. For all you know, the output might be covered in crap
like ignition noise. In which case, a lot of switchers will fail sooner or
later. I don't know what your background is - I've never seen you on S.E.R.
before so I guess you're here as a result of the cross-posting. For all I
know, you might be the best SMPS designer in the world, and your efforts
might be bomb-proof. But for every one of you, there are a thousand Chinese
sticking their ****-street designs in everything from light bulbs to vacuum
cleaners. I see this crap every day (as well as some good ones) and many of
the designs do, as I said, work by the skin of their teeth. If you throw
mains at them that's covered in spikes and other garbage, they *will* fail.
It's not at all rare to see items such as TV sets that have been used on the
end of cheap inverters and generators, with either blown power supplies, or
corrupted EEPROMs.

I would also point out that many cheap Chinese designs without a PFC front
end rated to 260 volts AC, have a single main filter cap rated at 400 v.
Even with mains at the high end of 'normal', that doesn't allow a lot of
overhead. If the output of this generator is poorly regulated, the input
voltage to the power supply could easily take this cap close to its limits.
In which case such a supply may well 'give a damn'.

So to the O.P., if you want to believe this guy and ignore Aldi's warning,
go right ahead. You might get away with it if if the TV or whatever has one
of Rod's designs of PSU in it. Otherwise you may well not ...

Arfa