i made an attempt at this one, edison inspired, it was an evacuated glass chamber with a filament (0.7mm pacer graphite)
i made the evacuated chamber out of a jam jar and check valves from an aquarium retailer, it could go down to 10KPa.(drew air out of a continer and let water flow back into it on relief to check that.)
the graphite was suspended by thick copper wire passed through the lid of the jam jar and connected to 16V 3A AC.
the graphite glowed yellow and you could easily read by it but you could feel the heat coming off it... which lead to some hot glue melting and admitting air into the chamber, making the graphite smoke, arc, thin out and eventually break.
i may have gotten 30 seconds of light out of it but it's hardly a winning formula.