Will a record weight harm the motor in a direct drive turntable?

I thought the subject was record weights, not platters, and the assumption in considering what limits to place on record weights is that the platter bearing is in good functional condition according to the design parameters of the maker of the TT, whatever those may be. Of course no one would argue that the latter is of primary importance from the get-go. But most of us are not going to be replacing the OEM bearing with a custom made aftermarket one, unless the OEM bearing is found to be defective due to wear. The main way we have of detecting bearing wear is bearing noise. If there is audible noise which one may perceive as a kind of rumble, of course the bearing has to be serviced.  I guess you are saying that the bearing of a vintage TT is per se worn to the extent that it is suboptimal, just on the basis of its long term of service, whether one perceives "rumble" or not.  For the Denon DP80, and probably for the DP59L, Denon in their sales literature and owners manual stipulated that the bearing would "never" need service.  I think they actually used the word "never".  But I also think they did not contemplate a 40-50 year lifespan for their products. Let's also keep in mind that we are talking about a bearing that turns at the very slow rate of 33 rpm, most of the time; this is not the engine of a Formula 1 car.

I own an AT618A that I purchased in Tokyo on one of our visits.  (Sometimes I just buy stuff I don't really need only because I am there and it costs less.) It weighs 600g, or more than a pound. I use it only on my SP10 Mk3, which has a 21 lb platter, on the basis that the record weight is only about 5% of the platter weight for which the bearing was designed and therefore should not hurt the bearing. But I certainly would not say the 618A is too heavy for a TT81, etc. I use a 250g weight on my TT101. The AT618A really does seem to get more out of the SP10 Mk3 than the SOTA reflex clamp, for example. That is a purely subjective off the cuff judgement. I do like it.

Hope the responses take a load off your mind. Like someone else said, it’s not the motor but the bearing that might be negatively affected over time. And of course it depends on how much weight. I was surprised at some of the conservative responses, because some guys talk about weights up to 1 kg (2.2 lbs) with aplomb. I think of it in relation to the weight of the platter that the bearing was designed to support. If the platter weighs 10 lbs (4-5 kg), then a 250g weight will probably do no harm. Or even a bit more. And clamps are good; I use the SOTA reflex.